What is important to you? Have you ever taken a moment to consider what is truly important in your life? Maybe you have thought about it in the past, but have you revisited it in a while?
Think about it: What is important to you?
Pause for a few minutes and think about it. What comes to mind?
Family? Faith? Money? Success? Health? Status? Generosity? Legacy? Business?
Write down the top two or three (no more than three) things that come to mind. Seriously, write them down on a sticky note, on your phone, anywhere you can actually see them, a mental list doesn’t work here.
As you write them down, you might find that whittling your list down to only three items could be more challenging than you thought. You also may notice that some areas of your life overlap meaningfully with others. Money, family, business, and status could all overlap, but nailing down what is really important, what is driving you, is the real objective of the exercise.
In my own list, I allow myself a brief description of the area of my life, not a complete sentence, but blurb you would expect on a bulleted list. Something like:
Family – strong, supportive marriage; loving, engaged father; healthy relationships
To be clear, I’m not here to tell you what should be important to you, your list could look totally different than mine. Instead, I want to bring focus and clarity to what YOU believe is truly important. Your list will be unique to you and you alone.
Take your list, set it down in front of you and read through your most important things. Are they in the correct order? Are they worded properly? Are there any areas of your life that you feel should be on the list that aren’t? On the flip side, is there anything on the list that you wish wasn’t?
Sit with this for a while. What insight can you draw from your list? What does it illuminate about your heart? Your motivation? Your values?
Does your list align with the person you want to be?
I’ll use myself as an example, my top three list consists of:
Family - strong, supportive marriage; loving, engaged father; healthy relationships
Faith - consistent, faithful, active, reliant relationship with God
Health - physical, mental, and emotional wellness for me and my family
What’s interesting is, some of my greatest stressors come from my professional and financial goals and circumstances. You'll notice that does not make it into my top three things.
This does not mean that I should not work on those areas of my life. Rather, the insight I gleaned from my list is that I need to keep the proper perspective for why I work so hard and why I am trying to earn an income. It is not for the sake of professional accomplishment, power, or stockpiling wealth.
No, the motivation for professional and financial success is to be able to provide for my family and have the time flexibility that professional and financial accomplishment can provide. Finances also open doors to new levels of generosity with my time and resources that can help fuel my faith journey and grow the Kingdom. Professional and financial growth can also help create margin to take better care of myself and my family in all areas of our health.
So you see, my most important things can lead to goals in other areas. But my biggest takeaway is that I cannot allow the stress of less important things take my focus away from my most important things.
My question to you is: Are you focused on your most important things?
If you aren’t sure, take a look at your calendar, see how you are spending your time. Or take a look at your credit card statements, where are you spending your money? What are your conversations about? What do you find yourself daydreaming about?
Do your important things really drive your daily activities or are they just ceremonial mantras that sound good to the outside world?
If we are being honest, many of us fall into that last category. We say faith drives our life but there is no evidence in our actions, our finances, or how we treat those around us. We say we value health but we continue to avoid whole foods and exercise. We say we value family but we work long hours or prioritize our social calendar over family time. We say we value professional success but we avoid the hard work required to get there.
Time is our most precious resource and no matter how hard we try, it is nonrenewable. How you spend your time will determine which areas of your life will flourish.
I recently received some very wise, albeit seemingly obvious, advice during a charity golf tournament. A man I was playing with had owned, operated, and sold three separate multimillion dollar businesses. He has three adult children that he has a great relationship with, eight grandchildren, and a loving wife of nearly 40 years. He continues to work for a non-profit that helps wealthy families exercise their generosity and give away millions of dollars to charities and churches.
He's a guy I want to listen to.
This is what he told me: You can be a good golfer or a good dad, not both. This may sound simple but it is quite profound. As he explained further, he shared that you cannot do everything and if you try, you won’t do anything well.
You must prioritize the important things and sacrifice everything else.
This is a lesson many have learned the hard way. Take the twice divorced workaholic that prioritized work over family under the guise of “providing for the family.” Or look at the Christian that roles up to church in the Range Rover but doesn’t volunteer time or give financially. Maybe look at that person that wants be healthy but “doesn’t have time workout.”
I am not saying that people in these examples are bad people, I am pointing out that how you spend your time will determine the areas of your life that are successful. I am also not saying that your important things need to look anything like mine. But whatever makes your list, make it your focus. Don’t let time slip away without intentionally working on your important things.
We all have choices every day. How we spend our time determines our direction.
Put your list of important things somewhere you will see it. Stick them to the bathroom mirror, make it your phone wall paper, make it the desktop background on your computer. It is so easy to become distracted in this busy, rushed world we live in. Keep your important things in plain sight.
Don’t compare yourself to anyone else except you, yesterday. Your objective should keep your direction toward your important things. One step at a time. 1% improvement. Little by little. Becoming Better Every Day.
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