Every now and then, you may wonder about the complexities and maybe even some chaos in your life. You probably struggle to figure out what’s next. Maybe you are confused at times about what to do and which way to go. Have you thought about setting your life priorities to make your life easier? Knowing what your priorities are stems from knowing what you value most.
When you’re struggling to determine what’s important to you, it’s hard to make decisions. What will you do next? Where will you go for the evening? Who will you choose to pass the time with?
Feeling torn between two or more people, places and things is common if you haven’t yet identified your priorities. Which do you value more? After all, when you consider everything and everyone in your life as all-equal in terms of their “level” of importance or their value to you, it’s going to be very tough for you to choose the “right” thing to do next.
Setting your life priorities is a way of identifying what’s most important to you. Once you determine your priorities, you just may be surprised with the ease of making decisions and the serenity that comes with knowing you did the right thing.
Establishing priorities also gives you a clearer focus on how to allot your limited time. For the times when it is needed saying, yes to the right things is easy and for some of us, even more important, saying no is becomes easier as well. If you allot the bulk of your time to doing what’s most important with the most important people in your life, doing the things that have value to you, you’ll feel more fulfilled and satisfied with your life experiences.
Common Life Priorities
What might your priorities be? The possibilities are endless. In the list below, you’ll find many common priorities in no particular order. Feel free to use the list as inspiration to help you figure out your own priorities. When working with the list, think about how each item relates to values.
- Family
- Finances
- Friends
- Extended family
- Work
- Hobbies
- Personal appearance
- Health and physical exercise/activities
- Nutritious eating
- “Alone-time” with partner
- Quality time with the children
- Playing games on the internet
- Talking on the phone
- Watching television
Example of a “Prioritized” Listing of Life Priorities
The whole idea of setting priorities is to put the many elements of your life into an order, with those that are most important to you at the top. Knowing your highest priority on the list is necessary in order to make focused, wise decisions that are right for you.
Consider this next list, which is prioritized, as an example of someone’s life priorities (in order).
- Family
- Alone-time with partner
- Work
- Health and physical exercise
- Nutritious eating
- Friends
- Watching television
- Personal appearance
- Hobbies – movies and reading
Coming Up With Your Own Priorities
Setting your priorities in life may take time and effort. However, taking the time to reflect on your day-to-day life and determine what’s on the top of your list will make your life so much easier. Once your priorities are clear to you, decisions on how to spend your time and with who will be a cinch.
Engaging in this exercise of figuring out your priorities might reveal some things that shock or surprise you.
For example, you might realize that you’re spending most of your time hanging out with friends even though you feel that your family is more important. Or you aren’t taking as much care with your kids as you thought you were.
Regardless of what you discover that you weren’t expecting, setting your priorities now will help you limit or even remove the less-important elements of your life and enable you to focus more fully on what means the most to you.
You can live more purposefully by setting your life priorities.
Knowing what’s important to you and devoting your time to those things at the top of your list will ensure you experience an enriched and fulfilled life. Set your life priorities today.
Need help determining your values? Open your eyes. Have vision.
Create Your Vision For Your Life Today
You’ve probably heard that you can only get where you want to be if you know where you’re going. This pithy statement is as true now as the first time it was said. So how do you come to know where you’re going, so you can get where you want to be?
To start with, goals are crucial. When we set goals, what we’re really trying to do is to bring each piece of our lives in line with our overall vision for ourselves. Using a powerful vision-setting process can help you prioritize and then set more effective goals, since you can chart a course that will take you toward and support your vision.
Do you have a vision for each segment of your life? Do you know where you’re headed
- Spiritually
- Socially
- Relationally
- Physically
- Financially
- Something else for you?
Use this process to help you create a vision that works for you
- Write down your vision for a particular aspect of your life.
Write a couple of paragraphs describing what you’d like to have or be. There’s no right or wrong. In fact, you probably won’t precisely articulate your dreams the very first time you try the exercise. A reasonable guess is a good place to start.
- In writing your vision, avoid focusing on what you don’t want, because this will only bring about more of that. Turn your back on negativity and focus on what you do want to bring about.
- For example, if you want more money: Avoid wording your statement like: “I don’t want to be poor anymore.” Instead, envision what it would be like to be rich, which is what you want, and write about what that would be like for you.
Although you may feel challenged when first learning to focus on what you want, it gets easier. Plus, the rewards are spectacular when you can do it consistently. You’ll start to notice that your life seems as if you can change it at will, which you can.
2. Visualize.
Read your vision statement 2-3 times a day and imagine that aspect of your life matches your vision perfectly. How does your vision make you feel? Are you really excited and enthusiastic? Is it appealing to you on all levels? Is the a deep feeling or emotion that seems to hit you at your core? This shouldn’t take more than 60 seconds to do each time.
3. Refine.
If you feel really good about your vision, that’s great. If not, now is the time to make some alterations. Continue refining the image of your dream life until doing your visualization feels spectacular. Re-write each new version.
- At this point, you may be wondering when this process ever ends. Fortunately, it never ends. Your vision will forever be changing slightly throughout your life, which is good, since your desires will also more than likely be changing over time.
4. Review your vision daily and ensure that it continues to attract you. This will rapidly usher change into your life. In turn, these changes will demonstrate that you’re actually moving towards that vision.
5. Create separate vision statements for all the areas of your life. Consider your finances, relationships, adventure, health, social life, and spirituality. If you can get all these visions to look just the way you want, imagine what your life will look like!
Why Spend Time On This Process?
Consider all the things you do every day. Everything you do is either helping you reach your vision or helping someone else reach theirs. Yes, things that you do may be for someone else’s benefit and not really for your own benefit. Since we are all are already doing things different things on a day-to-day basis, wouldn’t you rather be doing the things that really are of benefit yourself?
Sounds selfish, yes. But if you are doing things that meet your values, then the the things that you are doing should also be benefiting the people around you. Think of it like this: In the case of an airplane emergency and the oxygen masks drop down, what are you supposed to do? You must put the mask on yourself before you can help anyone else sitting beside you. You are no good to anyone else, if you have not taken care of yourself first.
Conclusion
Creating a vision is the first step to creating the life you desire. Tweak your visions a couple of times a day and really focus on the experience of living that vision. This gets easier all the time, because imagining something enjoyable is pleasurable in itself.
Don’t wait; Create your vision(s) today. Then, start reviewing and improving them immediately. Your life will change rapidly for the better. You’ll then be spending your time making your own visions a reality instead of making someone else’s dream come true.
Have your vision in mind? Maybe It is time to create your Mission Statement. What do you want to stand for? Create A Personal Mission Statement For Your Life
BAM! Be A Man. Do The Right Thing. Live With Vision.
BAM! Be A Man. Do The Right Thing.
Be The DtRTy Guy!