In my last blog, I talked about how hard it can be to keep focus on what matters most in our lives. We can get so busy that the people, values and beliefs that are most important to us just slip to the side as we react from one thing to the next. Steven Covey refers to that mode as substituting the important for the urgent. The urgent may be loudest so we do that, even though it isn’t what could and should be the most important to us.
It doesn’t have to be that way. We really can decide what we are going to do and how we are going to spend our time. We can define what matters most to us and we can live in a way that puts those things in the center of our thoughts, time and resources.
Here’s the hard part: In a lot of ways, it can go against the flow of several things that are currently in our lives (and even in our culture).
If you think about it – why have we gotten so busy? That can be a little different for each person, but in my experience and for the people I have spent a lot of time with, it has usually come down to some similar things:
- Other people’s requirements – I had a friend say that he wasn’t living his priorities, he was living his boss’. There are a lot of people who will take as much as we will give them. Ironically, I have found that the people who will do that taking are often far more assertive than those who will give. Most of us don’t want to disappoint others. And, particularly in a work situation, we don’t want to lose our jobs. So, we say “Yes”. That is ok if it fits in what matters most. But, if it doesn’t, something that mattered less just took some of the time of something that mattered more.
- Wanting it all – it is also easy to want to do so many things that activity takes the place of quality. This is particularly easy to do with those who have kids. We want our kids to experience everything and have every opportunity so we run them and ourselves ragged trying to fit it all in. When that creeps in, I try to remind myself of a couple of things: 1). Doing a lot can easily mean that we are not that good at anything – we can help weed out what is mediocre and/or not that important; 2). I am the grown up – I am teaching our daughter what life can be like – I don’t want to show her that she has to fill every minute of every day with a blur of mediocre experiences.
- Necessity – I have been (and am periodically in) the situation where something just has to get done. Or, I remember a time when there wasn’t enough money to go around and I just had to go work more. It took time away from other things that I wanted to be more important, but it had to be done. In those circumstances, I really tried to keep a clarity of where I (we) was headed and what I needed to do to get there. Here’s the thing – I had to work harder, because I had to do what was necessary while also doing the things needed to move me (us) beyond that circumstance.
That isn’t a complete list, but it covers a lot of situations.
Here’s the key question: How can you get from where you are to where you are spending your time and other resources on what is most important to you first?
In Mountaintop Life, we have some tools to help you do that that I will talk about in upcoming blogs, but the best starting point I have experienced is to: 1). Think about what is most important to you, then; 2). Get strategic. How can you change your circumstances? How can you get to where you are giving the most important things to you all of the time that they need? What do you have to do today, tomorrow, this week, etc. to get yourself there?
In the next blog, I will talk about some of the steps you can take to get yourself there that we have seen be successful. Until then, what is most important to you? And, what steps can you start taking to live accordingly?