How To Prioritize What Matters

Sometimes, we must take a step back, so we make a significant stride forward. Do you agree with this feeling? Have you felt this way personally?

In moments like this, I believe we have an opportunity to regroup; to reevaluate our priorities in life. But how do we do that?

I've been doing a lot of reflecting this past week, more than usual, to be honest, and as I was thinking about life. I couldn't ignore how much I've been doing in my own life and how necessary the need for change was and still is.

Now, I'm not perfect, nor am I pretending to be! However, because of my humility, I can admit it's time for a change of pace.

Today, I want to share some things that I'm learning in my personal life and as a content creator. My goal is to leave you with some food for thought and actionable steps you can implement into your life.

Here's how you prioritize what matters.

1. Recognize When It's Time To Hit Pause

Hitting pause means to live in the moment and spend time reflecting. Thinking about where you can improve in life and in what areas do you need to rethink completely.

I believe many of us struggle internally with this idea of FOMO—The Fear Of Missing Out. This idea creates a self-dialogue that we feed ourselves around the need to be everything and do everything all at once.

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't have superpowers! Never have; never will. So for me, trying to be everything and do everything is not possible! It's not healthy either! And I can just about bet that this is true for you also. If so, try hitting pause. I promise you won't miss anything!

2. Get Over The Fear Of Missing Out

Now, this is easier said than done; I get it! As I said, I believe many of us struggle internally with this idea of FOMO—including myself.

However, when we can have the humility to be honest with ourselves, even when honesty comes with something we don't necessarily want to hear but need to hear. To me, that is the key we need to manage or get over our fear of missing out.

In other words, when we admit that we sometimes feel this way, it allows us to not only be conscious of that feeling but also reject it whenever we find ourselves starting to prioritize what matters most.

"To prioritize what matters, we have to be willing to skip or miss things that are currently not important."

3. Make Core Values A Priority

Before we can prioritize what matters, we must clarify our core values because our values dictate the road we travel in life. And that road is paved by the things that are important to us.

So how do we determine what's truly important?

Focus.

Whatever we consciously chose to focus on, we're also categorizing that thing as necessary.

The perfect metaphor for this is driving. When you're driving in your car, you're focused on the road ahead of you, and you're aware of the cars and traffic around you.

However, the moment you're distracted by either your phone, the radio, or music. In split, second things can change, and you'll find yourself off course or in an accident.

See, "focus" is another way to think about "prioritizing" because focus allows us to ignore what's not "important" and devote our attention to what is.

4. Connect The Dots Between Values and Goals

Our priorities should always align with our core values if we want to gain a sense of purpose and understanding, which is why I firmly believe that our values are pivotal to the structural integrity of life's foundation.

Meaning we should use our core values as a starting point to help us determine the actions needed to live them out. Similar to how we set goals and systems.

Think of prioritizing as the goal and our core values as the foundation and system to help us meet the goal.

5. Manage Commitments

I saved this one for last on purpose because we also have to clarify our commitments, just like our values.

What are we committing to and why are we committing to it? See, managing commitments is not the same thing as multi-tasking or trying to multi-task, I should say. And over-committing kills our ability to prioritize!

Learning how to prioritize what matters means learning to say no!