The Elevation Approach, by Tina Wells, is a helpful guide for helping people elevate the quality of their lives and ministries to a new level, and for helping people live as our best selves. It’s a book that challenge readers to take on projects that bring them joy, do less but do what matters, and to experience work-life harmony in the midst of our competing commitments. Listed be are my insights from the first few chapters of the book that are that I found helpful and worth applying to my daily life.

Listed below are a few of my insights and takeaways from the first four chapters of the book. 

• Quit prioritizing productivity over well-being. Prioritize your life as much and you do your job.
• Let go of striving to achieve work-live balance. The idea of work-life balance assumes your work life and personal life are separate. It doesn’t account for the possibility that our work lives will encroach upon our personal lives or that our personal lives will affect our performance at work. These silos don't exist in most people's lives. Nor do most our everyday routines neatly fit into either of those categories.
• Work-live balance doesn’t prevent us from taking on too many responsibilities. We need to think about how many competing commitments we can realistically manage, and which ones we may need to set aside, at least for a period of time. In music, harmony happens when two or more contrasting melodies are played together. In our everyday life, harmony happens when we integrate our personal life and work life so our days flow smoothly, where one part of our life complement another rather than working in opposition to each other.
• Put yourself first rather than putting work first. Make yourself the nexus around which your life revolves. Ask yourself if the things in your life are in sync with your priorities.  Be willing to choose activities that enhance your life and eliminate those that don’t.
• Pay attention to your body and its reactions. Our bodies often tell us what’s working and what’s not working in our life. Consider what you might learn if you listen to your body and the moods you experience.
• Quit deferring what's most important to you. Prioritize your passions and add them to your NOW list rather than your LATER list . Quit deferring your dreams. Move up the timelines for when you'll embed them into your schedule.
• Use small steps and small moments to begin your journey. Find pockets of time when you can experience that harmony. View commuting time, short walks, and waiting for a meeting to begin as gifts of time to reinvent your life.
• Rediscover the power of curiosity. Our curiosity wanes as we grow older and become jaded by the world’s limits and obstacles. We focus on the reasons why we can’t and shouldn’t do something rather than focusing on the benefits of giving it a try. We become beholden to existing responsibilities rather than reimagining new ways to move forward.

We can cultivate curiosity in our everyday life by: 

• Asking more questions. Be inquisitive about the world around you. View every encounter and new experience as an opportunity to learn, and to rethink your assumptions.
• Move slower. Turbocharge your powers of observation. Notice what people are saying, doing, wearing, and feeling. Slowing down allows our imagination to expand. 
• Take a closer look. Note what sparks your interest. Notice what seems to be out of character, unique, or a pattern of something larger going on. 
• Listen and digest. Note the tone, pace, and content of what you're listening to. Note how you respond to what you listen to and what triggers those responses. See what happens when you sit back and just listen.

This book provides an intentional process for elevating your life that includes four steps for creating a cycle of everyday reinvention:

1.  Make a plan
2.  Take action
3. Create accountability, and
4. Think through challenges. 

Begin the elevation process by listing what's working in your life, what's not. List what's life-giving and what's life-draining. Take a few minutes to list your responses to the questions below and share them with a close friend or family member.  Keep in mind that reinvention is an everyday experience and that the small steps you take today will help you move closer toward your preferred future.