pinpoint priorities

Here’s a simple way to determine what your priorities are: take a close look at how you spend your time.

Whatever your priorities are, if you spend your time doing things that don’t support what you believe (or say) you want for yourself, then your priorities are not aligning with your goals.

Deciding who you want to be allows you to set goals to get there. As our lives progress and we grow, those goals can be adjusted. It’s an ongoing process, not a cut and dry scenario. Our goals require habits and behaviors that support them. If you’re in high school and want to make the basketball team, you would probably practice before tryouts. Or if you have a goal of going to college, you will most likely work hard in school to get good grades.  If you tell yourself these are your priorities, but don’t spend time practicing or studying, then they are not priorities.

If you say you’d like to be fit and healthy but spend your free time watching tv and eating unhealthy foods, your priority is not to be fit and healthy, it’s to watch tv and eat unhealthy foods. If you prioritize getting a great job, then you’ll be persistent and proactive toward that end. You might refine your resume and do research on the company you’re interested in. In other words, you will spend your time doing things that get you closer to your goal.

Do we get every job or win every game or get into every school? Of course not. But we increase our chances of reaching our goals by prioritizing our time and behaviors to align with what we want for ourselves.

Every single day is an opportunity. How you use the time you have allows you to get closer to who you want to be and where you want to go. Evaluating how you spend your time is a first step in pinpointing what your priorities are, and what you would like them to be.