Blog #10
Setting your priorities. What does it all mean?(Part 1 of 2)
Setting your personal life priorities to becoming a healthier you can be a real eye-opener for most of us. Setting our priorities to help us achieve our goals in life can be a real challenge. But not if we don’t let it be. Almost like making that bucket list, or New Years resolutions every year, making a list of our priorities can be worked out in the same manner. But this list is not a one-time use, it is a daily forever time use!
Realizing what our priorities are may take some life-changing thinking on our parts. Falling back into old-habits can become really easy, if we don’t prioritize our life goals.
What does it all mean? For Starters it’s putting ourselves through a reality check. Realizing what is important in our lives, and what is not. Separating the two can be a real-life changer. Giving ourselves a break and room to breathe and relax is important in making our ideas become priorities in our lives.
What should come first on that list? YOU need to become first. Putting yourself first and prioritizing what is the most important life goals you want to achieve first is step number one. Reaching the goals, you have always wanted to reach and achieve will fall into step, once you put YOU first on this journey.
So how do you figure out what’s the most important? You must commit to making time for yourself. Getting caught up in the details of everyday living can cloud your vision around what’s most important to you. Even taking short amounts of time to relax and plan will help you to reduce the clutter and see more clearly what you may have been missing before.
So, how do we do this? If you want to set your priorities straight, you need to get rid of the distractions. Turn off your TV and phone! It's time to focus on bettering your life and throwing your clutter out the door. You need to set aside time on your calendar to set your priorities and start eliminating your distractions.
When you think about how you want to live your life, what comes to mind? However you choose to live your life, and reach your health happiness goals will most likely be determined by how you set your priorities. When you want to make changes to your life, it's important to know what's most valuable to you. Sometimes, though, it can be hard to figure this out when you are going ten million miles a minute every day and you start to lose focus on what you originally wanted in the first place.
We all live such busy lives these days and it makes it challenging to do everything on our to-do list. To make sure you’re able to focus on your priorities it’s important you ask yourself the ‘why’ behind everything you do. Once you have a deeper understanding of why something is important to you, it makes it easier to follow through with getting it done. You may even find once you discover your ‘why’ that sometimes your priorities will change just a little bit, and that’s o.k.!
Here are six of twelve steps (part 1 of 2) to help you figure out how to prioritize your life goals:
Figure Out What's Most Important to You.
Before you even think about this, look at your life, and the direction it is going. Who you are with, where you work, where you live, and assess your own health happiness. Are you there yet? Almost there? Not even close? Think about what part of your journey you want to be on right now, tomorrow, next month and next year. Figure out what are the most important goals in life you want to achieve right now. Remember these can change over time, so don’t stress out about the future. Just focus on what is the most important things in your life right now that you want to focus on or to achieve.
2. Determine How You Want to Live Your Life.
If you want to work only a certain number of hours per week, find something that will allow you to do this. If working full-time is your only option right now, then make sure that you find the time to be able to do what you want outside of work. It’s important to have your priorities straight so you’re living a life of purpose and fulfillment that feels good for you. When you have your priorities straight and know what’s important to you, you’re more likely to reach your goals and achieve what you really want out of life at work and on your own free-time.
3. Create your own plan to achieve your most important goals.
It's time to put your thoughts into action. Take a few moments to create a plan of where you would like to see yourself in the next couple of months or years. Align those dreams with your priorities to help you focus on making your wishes come true. Create your own plan on how you want to achieve those goals. Finding a new job? What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? Re-build your resume. Wanting a move? Do the research, find an area that would make you happy. Warm climate? All Season climate? Apartment? House? Weight loss goals? Exercise goals? Make a plan to help you get there! Write it all down.
4. Map out your daily tasks.
Have you ever felt so motivated to make a change in your life, but in just a few days, you retreated to your old habits? Prevent this by mapping out what you need to do every day to keep you motivated and focused. Estimate the time required for each daily task and map out what you can do each day to stay on track and achieve your goals.
5. Designate specific time slots for your daily tasks.
Sometimes just setting aside a specific time is all it takes. Within moments you may realize you can get a lot done once you designate an actual time on your calendar for a task. It's important to remember to set time aside for things that truly matter to you every day. Whatever it is, you won't feel fulfilled if you constantly put other things before your own happiness. Set a time every day to exercise. Plan a time in the evening to write in your journal or read a few chapters in your book. Take time to have that conversation with your significant other or friend. Stick to your plan!
6. Eliminate any distractions.
If you want to set your priorities straight, you need to get rid of the distractions. Turn off the TV and throw your phone out the window, it's time to focus on bettering your life and leaving the clutter at the door. Set aside time on your calendar to set your priorities, but also start eliminating distractions. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, FaceTime, Kick, SnapChat these kinds of distractions take up more time during the day and create more interruptions than we realize. Limit the amount of time you spend on Social Media! You’ll be surprised on how much hidden time you discover to focus on pursuing your priorities and finding extra time to achieve your goals and spend with your family! YEAH!
If you feel like you are missing out on living the life that you want, and you haven’t quite figured out how to re-set your priorities to achieve all the goals you want to, then I hope this checklist will help you find solace in figuring out how to do just that!
Part 2 in next weeks blog, another 6 steps in helping you figure out what it all means?
Time to think about what it all means to you! Prioritizing, I never thought about that, or have I?
