Intentional Living Week Four: Do You Have Your Priorities Straight?

Posted: 11 years ago | By: Christine Somers | In: Intentional Living Series | Read Time: 2 minutes, 17 seconds

“Good things happen when you get your priorities straight”.  Scott Caan

This past week you have been compiling your list of what you like about your life and what you don’t like about your life. Were you surprised at what you wrote down? This week we will start the process of setting priorities that will help you achieve your goal of living an intentional life.

Several weeks ago my sister said to me that her number one priority in life was to get all the clean clothes in her house folded and put away. We laughed and hung up the phone. Some days are like that; a major success is just getting the laundry folded. However Julia’s overarching priority is to create an organized and comfortable home for her family and herself. Folding the laundry is one step to achieving that priority.  

Identifying and stating your priorities proclaims that you recognize you have finite time and resources and that it is necessary to direct your energy and attention to one objective before addressing a competing alternative. This is important because if you don’t verbalize and set your priorities opportunities will be missed. Or worse yet, someone else will set priorities for you.

To consciously implement your life’s vision, you must first be clear on what your priorities are and how you are spending your time. I would venture to say that those areas where you life is working, you are consciously spending more of your time. Understandably, not so much on the other side.  I regularly test what I am doing at the moment against my stated priorities. If I find I am involved in too much busy work or spreading myself too thin, I pull back and refocus on my stated priorities. To do that I first had to be clear on my priorities.

Week 4 Assignment: List your priorities.

As a starting point, take out the Life Lists you compiled last week. Based on those observations, what are your priorities? If you said, “I exercise regularly”, would you include that as a priority?  Additionally, if you want to include something from your 'what is not working' list, do so. As an example, you stated that your finances were a mess and you want to make changing that a priority, include that as a priority. 

Once you complete your review of the Life Lists, identify any other aspirations that you would like to add to your priority list. Again, this is not the time to limit priorities; you will do that down the road. Right now you want to capture those ambitions that you believe will lead to enhancing your happiness. Next you will start to cull and clarify your priorities.