How often do we find ourselves reflecting at our priorities for the day and realize, maybe, just maybe, we may be pushing the boundaries of reasonable. I mean, I am all for you being a renaissance man or woman and pulling from different trades and spaces. The real lift though comes when these share a specific set of attributes.
You can do many things, if they serve you
I recently sat down and audited my passions, activities, and purpose. I did this across each of my core areas — family, health, fitness, technology, social media, and more. yes .. more. I highly recommend you audit yourself at least every 6 months, and would be happy to share my methodology here if others have an interest.
My audit was done as if I was a third party, and then reviewed what I am spending my time on. The intent was the following:
- Am I doing things I love
- Are these being done in a manner that helps me grow
- Are these giving others value, and if so, am I honoring that attention
- Are these activities accumulative in nature
- Do these provide a 1+1=3 value
What I uncovered after several deep sessions reviewing my own areas, was that some things are amazing and nail these areas and others … more pet projects. The problem with the pet projects — the are / were sapping energy from those that are important.
What are signals of good priorities
When I engage in many priorities I don’t simply just do that one thing. That one priority — to create and share my writings, has dozens if not hundreds of dependencies. So, allowing even one activity to remain creates an exponential amount of effort. I love it. I love the process that each of these entail, but I also am mindful of the quality I deliver is not even.
Here is how I think about my priorities/projects:
- Can I win in it
- Can it sustain / support itself (are the costs ultimately covered in some future time)
- Is it niche and specific
- Do I have / can I achieve enough content / expertise
- Audience
- Love it?
- Time commitment — simple Low, Medium, and High scale
You love all your children, but only 2 can go to town today
In the end, when I finished my audit, I had deeply reflected on nearly 8 important priorities / projects in my life. That is a lot of love. It is also too many. I forced myself to choose 2, that is it. That doesn’t mean the others are lost forever. I FULLY am ok with going all in on these two, because I believe once these are fully realized I can return to the original list of 8 and pull two more.
Why 2 … well, nobody is only focused on 2 things .. these are my two EXTRA priorities that are feeding my soul and with hard work prove to be meaningful in the world. My non-negotiable list includes:
- Being a great Dad
- Being a good son and brother
- Giving more than I take with my community and home
- Living a healthy life that gives strength to others
I need help
When I finally settled on my reviews I noticed something. I had repeated and near verbatim, made the same conclusions two other times. Literally I looked back in my journal and saw 21 days earlier I had achieved the same clarity. Yet, everyday afterwards, I continued to work on these expanded priorities. Why? Why was it different this third time?
I asked for a third party, a friend, to hear me out and support my decision. The outside voice allowed me to test my ideas. It allowed me to have a conclusive conversation and result. You can achieve clarity on your own, but ultimately I recommend you bring a trusted party in and trust their guidance to lean out your priorities.
One interesting insight — you may not agree with their selection, you don’t have to it is your life, but you MUST see their elimination as the secret gift they give you. They may show you relationships and accumulative advantage you don’t see. They may even see a way where two people can come together and build as a team — suddenly you can now scale!
Demand more from this world, by creating it
No one is coming to do this for you. No one will make your visions come to life. There is no free money; energy in a bottle, or book / movie / song that will be the unlock to these gifts you wish to bring to the world. You create it, as you see fit, in the time you see necessary. That is the reward and the cost.
You have one moment on this planet. You can leave a legacy with friends and family you impact, or you can create the greatest life for yourself. No matter the scale and scope of a life, the most important thing you do is that, you do.
Create, grow, build, and do so with your whole heart. Better to have seen a few of your passions thrive than to never have had the chance to try.
Love you all.
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About Me
I am a father, study of human behavior, strategist, cybersecurity veteran, and a coach and mentor on a journey to give more than I receive everyday. I lead teams globally, build products, and daily an executive for a leading company where I serve the largest companies in the world using the largest cloud deployments in the world impacting the financial services, healthcare, and fintech industries. I provide these publications and content through my media agency to deliver insights and advantages. Mindset, mental strength, mentorship, personal improvement, health, fitness, and humanist ideas are drawn from personal research and practice. Everything read and heard is my original works and my own perspective. All rights reserved for noted authors and sources. I produce research and strategy, as well as provide advisory services that include inquiries, briefings, consulting projects, and presentations on published findings as well as bespoke speaking engagements where I often keynote at conferences, seminars, and roundtables annually.