The 3-Tier Focus Finder™

{Why Order Matters}

Were you one of those kids in math class who asked:

🙋‍♀️ “When are we ever going to use this in real life?”

LOL, I’m pretty sure I was. 😄

Math was never my strongest subject, but two things still stand out all these years later: 

➡️ FOIL
➡️ Order of Operations

And here’s the funny thing…

The older I get, the more I realize my math teachers were teaching something far bigger than math.

Because God seems to have woven this principle into His creation:

🧭 First things have to come first. There is an order to things.

Not because some things don’t matter.
But because some things come before other things.

In math, the order is already given to you.

In life?

Not so much. 😅

Life hands you a pile of challenges and says:

“Now figure out what comes first.”

And that’s where many of us get stuck.

Not because we’re lazy.
Not because we’re unwilling.

But because sometimes we are trying to solve the problem at the wrong level.

For years, in my pursuit of Peace with Food, I focused mostly on the visible things:

➡️ What I was eating
➡️ How much I was exercising
➡️ My calories
➡️ My workouts

Those things matter.

A lot.

But after menopause, I discovered something:

I couldn’t always solve a Tier 1 problem with a Tier 2 or Tier 3 solution.

Sometimes the issue wasn’t that I needed:

➡️ more discipline
➡️ a better meal plan
➡️ a harder workout
➡️ a new strategy

Sometimes the real issue was upstream.

It was things like:

➡️ hormones
➡️ recovery
➡️ chronic stress load
➡️ emotional health
➡️ thought patterns
➡️ underlying physical factors

Those things were affecting everything downstream.

That’s what led me to create what I now call:

The 3-Tier Focus Finder™

🌿 Tier 1: Foundations
Spiritual, mental, emotional, and underlying physical factors.

This tier asks:

“What’s driving this?”

🌿 Tier 2: Daily Habits
Sleep, eating, exercise, hydration, and stress management.

This tier asks:

“What daily habits support health and growth?”

🌿 Tier 3: Optimization
Supplements, specialized protocols, advanced strategies, timing tweaks, and fine-tuning.

This tier asks:

“How can I optimize what is already working?”

Before I understood this principle, I usually went straight to Tier 2 or Tier 3.

The eating strategy.

The exercise plan.

The supplements.

The fine-tuning.

The newest “this might be the thing” solution.

The “tell me what to do” plan. 

That was the approach I knew.

And if I’m being real… 😄
those things can feel more fun and more actionable.

But this lens helped me slow down and ask:

“What’s actually driving this?”

Because often, the thing I’m trying to fix is not the real source.

🌿 Sometimes the eating struggle isn’t only about eating.

🌿 Sometimes the productivity struggle isn’t only about time management.

🌿 Sometimes the relationship struggle isn’t only about communication.

🌿 Sometimes the health struggle isn’t only about effort.

🌿 Sometimes the symptom is simply where the pressure-release valve shows up.

That’s why I’ve become so passionate about this question:

Am I working on the symptom, or am I working on the source?

Before asking:

➡️  “What should I do?”

I’m learning to ask:

➡️  “What comes first?”

Because sometimes the breakthrough isn’t found in working harder.

Sometimes it’s found in working on the right thing first.

🌿 Work on the source, not just the symptom by going upstream.

Build the foundation.

Steward the daily habits.

Then optimize.