What is Your Priority?
At the heart of Define My Day are the priorities on each daily page. Each day, we list the actions that are most important to us. However, it can often become another variation of a to-do list, just a bit fancier.
We certainly don’t want that. We want to focus on actions that move us forward.
Let’s re-explore what our priorities need to be.
Priorities Directly Connected to Our Purpose
Sounds big and scary right? I know but it’s really not that bad. Even if you’re still a bit foggy on what your purpose may be, try to move in the general direction that feels meaningful.
Your purpose could be a financially secure family, helping others, building a business, being a great parent or grandparent, or to be the best musician in the world. It’s all up to you. But, in order to do that, you need to work on it every day with focused effort.
That’s what your priorities are meant to be.
Priorities Are More Important Than Anything Else
Your priorities should make you want to wake up and get moving. They should feel meaningful. Most of all, they should step you toward improving your life.
Plus, if they are more important than anything else, you should be sure you make time for them every day. Try to block off time before anything else wears you down or gets in the way.
If you can’t block off time early due to work or other obligations, it will certainly be more difficult but even more important to make sure you’re avoiding time and energy sucking distractions throughout the day.
Priorities are Hard
A lot of things worth doing are going to be difficult. Personal progress often means delaying gratification in order to get a greater reward later in life. Priorities are something that once you complete, you feel a sense of accomplishment and, hopefully, a bit of personal growth.
Don’t shy away from hard. See difficulty and struggle as an opportunity to learn, grow, and develop perseverance. Every time you push through “hard” you grow. Every time you avoid it, you turn away from your best self.
Develop a Priority Focus
We live in a world designed to distract us. Bings, beeps, flashing lights, email, social media, TV, and more, are all designed to yank our attention away from focused work on the most important things in our lives.
You don’t have to have all of the answers today. Simply decide to explore your purpose, work toward personal growth each day, and be intentional with your time. You will find dead ends. You will fail. Most importantly, you will grow.
Hi Nick, I find myself at place in the road that no one ever addresses. I am 65 and lead a fulfilling, rewarding and goal oriented life. I raised two sons and also a granddaughter I adopted as an infant. I earned a degree and worked in a career field I loved. Three years ago I suffered from a life altering illness. The lasting gifts from my illness make life pretty unenjoyable. I look back and think, really I worked hard to meet goals. But now I am just tired. Working in social work, I actually taught other goal settings techniques. But, here’s the rub. I have no more goals. I wish I did… but there’s “nothing” remotely I could think of say a long term goal to work toward. I know about breaking down in to chunks. What can you tell me, a person who feels like she’s checked all the boxes? I am totally serious and wish someone could answer this question. Thank you.
Hi Sally! You seem to have made a life in helping others. That requires so much energy. I can understand that you’re tired. In your situation, I would make my goal, “to explore my purpose.” Is there anything you have always wanted to do? Learn at new skill? Visit a new place? You may want to spend time developing areas in your life for awhile. You never know, you could find a new passion or even rekindle your passion for helping others. One final thought, it’s ok to be satisfied. It sounds like you’ve done a lot of good work. Looking back with a sense of accomplishment is what we all want! But project yourself ahead another 20 years… what would you regret not doing now?
Write a memoir for your family.