Do you feel like you’re constantly juggling work, family, and personal commitments? Are you struggling to find balance in your life? For years, Jeff Garrett thought that this perfect balance was the key to success, but his efforts to live a life of perfect balance always failed and left him feeling frustrated and overwhelmed. Over time, Jeff learned that he could live his live out of balance in a happy and healthy way, and his new book, Thriving in Chaos: The Six Pillars for Embracing Life’s Imbalance, challenges this notion of the need to strive for perfect balance, and offers practical tools and strategies to pursue passion over predictability, embrace change and chaos, and succeed in a life lived out of balance.
When he was in his early 30s, Jeff found himself working 50 to 60 hours a week, and it was taking a toll on his marriage and family life. He was getting home late every night, and even when he arrived home, he was still caught up in phone calls and constantly thinking about work.
“I distinctly remember one time when I took my family on vacation. I drove them six hours down to Table Rock Lake, spent the next day with them, turned around, and drove back home the next day because something at work ‘blew up,’” shares Jeff. “Making money and my career were my number one priority. My life was built around my business. I wanted to make sure my family had all the things I did not have growing up, I wanted to provide the best for them, but thinking work was the most important thing, I was very much out of balance.”
With four young children, Jeff longed to find more balance between his home and work life, but all the self-help books he read and self-improvement seminars he attended focused on time management and work/life balance strategies that were unattainable and didn’t seem to work. Through trial and error, Jeff came up with his own model that brought balance to his faith, his home life, and his work. But even with this new well-thought-out model, which placed God firmly in the center of his life, Jeff found that he couldn’t maintain “perfect” balance in all areas of his life at all times. “You can’t live in balance all the time. As it says in Ecclesiastes 3, there are going to be different seasons in your life, you’re going to face various challenges. The balance is going to fluctuate. The question becomes: how do you react to these fluctuations? What are you going to do when you find yourself way out of balance?”
For Jeff, the key to living well within the fluctuating seasons of life is to identify and continually evaluate what he considers to be the six pillars of life – Family, Fitness, Finances, Friends, Faith, and Fun. Jeff recommends that readers have self-awareness and make a weekly or monthly evaluation of the role that each of these pillars has in their lives, and when one pillar becomes too far out of balance, that they take appropriate action and make corrections. “I advocate for living in a way that disrupts or challenges the notions of perfect balance. Learn to live out of balance. Embrace change. Prioritize passion over stability. Take risks. Expand your comfort zone. Be present in the moment. This can lead to a more adventurous and spontaneous life, new experiences, personal growth and self-discovery. Let yourself embrace the imbalance – it will reduce your stress and improve your fitness, relationships, family, and financial life. And you’ll have a lot more fun in life!”
Jeff and his wife, Donna, have been members of Regnum Christi for 25 years. Over the years, they have been involved in a variety of RC apostolates, including Familia, Challenge, Conquest, and ECyD, both serving as club presidents, team leaders, and section directors. They led summer leadership camps for young men and women, and launched mission programs at local high schools and at Benedictine College, taking students on missions to communities in need. Today, Jeff and Donna also serve as professional and spiritual mentors, providing counseling to couples as well as priests and seminarians. They are also deeply involved in their parish and diocese, serving on their archbishop’s committee for development and Jeff serves on the archdiocese parish advisory board.
And above all, the Garretts consider themselves to be a missionary family. As a family, they have participated in numerous local and international missions with their four children, now grown, including missions to Haiti and Mexico – in fact, it was an unwritten rule in the Garrett household that every child had to go on a mission trip before graduating high school. His experiences from his mission trips are some of the many personal stories that Jeff shares in Thriving in Chaos, which is a valuable resource offering practical advice to empower readers to create a life they love. By sharing his personal journey – including both successes and failures – Jeff hopes to provide readers with the tools to live a life out of balance in a healthy and fulfilling way.
Jeff is an executive coach and the founder of Ascent Performance Group, which was created to assist business executives, salespeople, and non-profit leaders in developing both personally and professionally, guiding them through strategies for improving productivity, making decisions, and, of course, living out of balance. He also hosts a podcast called The Regular Catholic Guy, where he shares about being a Catholic man in today’s world. The episodes cover topics such as marriage, raising a family, and prayer, helping listeners become better men, husbands, and fathers.
Jeff and Donna live in Omaha, Nebraska, and Jeff is currently quarterbacking the Men’s Strikeforce for Regnum Christi in North America. Their home is an open door to the Legionaries of Christ, Consecrated Woman of Regnum Christi, and lay Regnum Christi members, who are always welcomed with generosity and hospitality, along with great steak and good wine.
You can find Jeff’s book, Thriving in Chaos: The Six Pillars For Embracing Life’s Imbalance, on Amazon. Follow Jeff on Facebook or LinkedIn, or email him at [email protected].
