How to identify your priorities in life.

Let’s face it, currently, life is just a lot. For all of us. Between dealing with the world changes from Covid, to managing work stress, friendships, family relationships, and the 10,000 things on your to-do list today, you would need to be a Superwoman to get it all done! Well, I have a secret for you. You are a Superwoman! Let’s chat for a bit about how you can identify your priorities in life so you can give your best to your life priorities!

I know you don’t always feel like Superwoman, but you are! Not because of what you get done (although it is impressive!), but because you show up each day and keep fighting your way through life.  

Let’s pause for a minute and acknowledge all that you do and manage in a day. Because it is impressive but often feels taken for granted. If you saw your to-do list from someone else’s perspective, you would be impressed. Give yourself the gift of the same level of kudos you would give a friend!

Ok, You understand you are Superwoman and are going to be complementary to yourself while we talk about practical tips for the rest of this post? Put on your cape, and let’s get at it!

Busyness

One of the biggest threats to productivity is busyness. Even if you are clear in what you need to get done, other people can suck you into their busyness. 

Remember those days at work, where someone needed handholding to complete an unimportant task, but wouldn’t take no for an answer? Did you get all your work done that day, or did you stay late to get your work completed?  I bet you stayed late! 

Remember that sign you see occasionally in people’s offices? 

“Your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part”.

Don’t sacrifice your work, health, and wellbeing for other people’s inability to do what they need to do. This results in you being reactive and feeling like you are not in control of your own life on a daily basis. These are some of the catalyst steps leading to burnout, so be aware! 

Before you step in and assist someone, do a quick analysis of what it will cost you (time, stress, work, family time, etc) and ensure you are comfortable making those sacrifices for this person or organization.  If you need a moment to make this determination, take it! Use responses like this to buy you time to evaluate and decide:

• I need a minute to check on my priorities for the day before I can commit to this. Why don’t you start on the first section/step/research and I will let you know how I can help in 30 minutes. 
• Let me check on my plans for the evening, and I will let you know if I can stay late and help you with this client. I will come to your desk in about 10 minutes. 
• Since this board meeting is not on our normal day of the week, I need to check into my plans and see if I am able to attend. I will let you know tomorrow via email. 

Once you have a moment alone to consider the request and make the best decision for you, here is where knowing your priorities in life comes into play. 

How to determine your priorities in life? 

You have probably seen the list of people’s priorities, usually starting with family, and including some combination of friends, work, volunteering, church, etc. Those are great priorities, but they are also pretty generic terms and can make it hard to make decisions in accordance with the priorities. 

Make your priorities specific

As you go through these exercises, work to identify your priorities in specific ways. Examples of this could be:

• Rather than “Family” try “I prioritize my family by having all of us at home by 6 pm four nights a week so we can have evenings together as a husband, wife, and kids”.  
• Rather than “Work” try “I prioritize my work by focusing on my productivity and efficiency, with minimal non-work distractions, between the hours of 7:30 am to 5:30 pm”. 

Having your priorities set out with specific boundaries enables you to make quick decisions on whether the request will align with your priorities, or if you will need to suggest something different.

A couple of examples of setting life priorities in action are below. 

• If the board you are volunteering for adds an extra budget meeting on Thursday night, in addition to their normal Tuesday night meeting. This meeting will keep you out until 8 pm on Thursday night. Based on the life priority you set above, that is not going to work for you. Either tell the Chair of the board that you can’t attend Thursday’s meeting or let them know you can only attend one meeting, which do they prefer to have your expertise at?
• A co-worker needs help with a customer you used to work with. It is 4:30 and you need 10 minutes to wrap up your work for the day. Based on the life priority that you set above, you will leave at 5:30. So your response will be I can give you the next 50 minutes to go over the issues you are dealing with. I need 10 minutes to wrap up here, why don’t you go and identify the most pressing or concerning items and I will be there shortly to go over them with you. 

Evaluate what areas of your life are most important to you to prioritize.

You can start with the list below. Work on writing a life priorities statement for the following that are meaningful to you. If you don’t have pets or if fitness is not important to you, then cross them off the list.  If there are things that are life priorities for you, then add it to the list! This is your personal list, make it so!

• Family
• Friends
• Pets
• Finances
• Work
• Relationships
• Religion/spirituality
• Volunteering or time for causes you are passionate about 
• Hobby #1
• Hobby #2
• Exercising and fitness 
• Education
• Travel
• Recreation or fun
• Home upkeep
• Yourself (see below for more on this one)

From your initial list, start working on writing priority statements to go with each of the items listed. It is ok to have multiple priority statements for a single priority. For work, this could look like this:

• A priority for me is to advance my career to the director level and I will take on continuing education,  committee assignments, and volunteer commitments to ensure I can advance to that level. 
• Having a life outside work is a priority for me. I will not work after 7 pm on weeknights, and will only work on 1 weekend day (only if needed), and never work both Saturday and Sunday. 

Priorities are not goals. They can lead to goals, but the statements themselves are setting an intention and not something to check off your list as an accomplishment. 

Let’s look at the first career advancement priority example from above. This may lead to the following goals:

1. I will sit on one non-profit board as a volunteer this year.
2. This year I will attend three continuing education classes, and one will be focused on leadership or advancement. 

How do you feel about seeing yourself on the priority list? 

For me, it was weird to think about prioritizing myself. I had always thought about outside priorities, rather than internal priorities. I want to challenge you to consider the following ideas when you are making your priorities.

1. Include your wellness, preferences, physical health, and mental health in the other areas of priorities you set. So if you occasionally work until 10 pm one night, but it just ruins your entire week. Then set the “I will not work past 7 pm” priority I mentioned earlier. 
2. Set one priority about yourself. Even if it feels weird or selfish, just do it. You are a priority.  I am a huge introvert and need evenings at home to rest and get prepared for the rest of the week. I set a priority that I will be home two nights during the workweek. No matter what the event or activity is. I will decline or re-arrange so that I have two nights at home during the week. 

Take time for introspective reflection to determine your priorities in life.

This isn’t the time to make snap decisions on what your life priorities are. If you are facing burnout, then work very gently at this step. It is important, but making decisions while facing burnout can lead to desperate and low-quality decisions. 

Take time to think through these in a journal or notebook over a period of time. Maybe start with a few minutes each evening for a week and see how far you get. 

Talk with close friends, family, or a significant other and get their perspective. This can be really valuable insight, but remember, these are your priorities. Consider their input and suggestions, but don’t let their suggestions sway you from something you know or want for yourself. 

These are not fixed priorities. They move, evolve, and change as you do. Make a plan to revisit these priorities regularly and make changes that fit your life where you are at. 

Post your priorities in life list where you can see it and reference it frequently.

Have a copy at work, in a common area at home, take a pic on your phone. You want it to be easily accessible so you can use it to help you make decisions as they come up. In the “buying time” situations I mentioned above, I would use a minute or two of my decision-making time to re-read my priorities. This way I am firm in my response and can withstand any pushback from the other person. 

Ok, you have homework to do!

Let’s wrap this up for today. I gave you a lot of information to think about. Take your time to process through it and figure out what you want to do with it. 

It may feel difficult to translate these priorities into the real world. In a couple of weeks, I will have a follow-up post to help you with doing that. Some of your priorities may conflict with the boundaries you currently have, and there may be an adjustment period needed to make some changes. 

Until then, work on identifying your life priorities groups and writing statements to specifically identify your priorities in life. 

I would love to hear your priorities and how you approach prioritizing life in the comments below or over on our Instagram page! Let’s inspire and share with each other!