What Defines and Drives your Priorities
Everything we do in life is driven by our priorities.
It’s a simple concept. We take action for what we consider important. The only problem is, most of us either don’t know or don’t realize our priorities.
If we want something in life, we either find a way to do it or we find an excuse for not doing it. Rings a bell?
And what are the most popular excuses? “I don’t have time” and / or “I don’t have money”.
You see, the issue is not lack of time or money. The real issue is having limited resources, especially time. No matter how much money you have, there are still 24 hours in your day and 7 days in your week.
Because we have a limited amount of time and money, we’re forced to be super selective with how we use them.
We spend our time and money on what we care about, on stuff that makes us feel good and on the things that we’re willing to work for.
But how about the rest? Well, for those, we just tell ourselves and everyone that if we had time or money then we’d do it. We say this even though we know that’s not the case.
When you know your priorities life gets easier. You no longer have to come up with excuses.
It takes courage to say NO I‘m not doing that because it’s not my priority at the moment. But it sets you free and you earn the trust and respect of others.
People are smart enough to know it anyway so why would you pretend?
Your actions always reveal your priorities. You can’t tell people you don’t have time to read but then watch TV all day. You also can’t say you don’t have money but then eat out every day.
The number one thing separating the high achievers from the rest is the self-awareness of priorities.
You need to be aware of what kind of life you desire with all the details. Make a list of all the activities you want to do on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly basis.
An example would be wanting to have a fitness class every day, a massage every week, a haircut every month, a getaway trip every quarter and a vacation every year.
Now you can reverse engineer what it takes to have that life. If you make them your priority as much as food and rent, you’ll find a way to achieve them.
You can put your priorities in two groups of “Must Have” and “Nice to Have”. As you achieve items from the “Must Have” group, you can move up items from the “Nice to Have” group.
Being crystal clear about your priorities has many benefits that will serve you a lifetime.
It helps you avoid wasting time and money. It makes it easier for you to say NO when something comes up and it’s not your real priority. And most of all, it allows you to achieve what you desire in shorter time.
If you’re not clear on your top 3–5 priorities in life, drop everything now and get started with your list, sleep over it and if it still makes sense start executing it.
I wrote this piece as part of a 90-day challenge I took on to get better at this type of writing. To learn more about me you can visit my website here.
