If you don’t prioritize your life, someone else will.
The word “priority” came into the English language in the 1400s. It was singular and remained so for 500 years. Not until the 1990s did it start to be used in the plural.
We literally changed the meaning and use of the word to illogically use it as plural, which takes the meaning of priority and throws it right out of the window! You cannot have multiple priorities. Something is a priority or it is not.
When you have multiple priorities none of them are a priority at all
For a long time in my life, I was married, running a marketing company, buying and managing real estate, and to make things even more sticky, went out and purchased and operated a hair salon. As you can probably imagine, my efforts were not ever focused in one place and therefore they all suffered. I lost my marriage, and my business partner, which resulted in more and more fallout across the board. Had I been more focused or had better defined my priority I may not have lost it all. Now, I am not saying that was the only catalyst for each, but I am certain that if I wasn’t spread so thin, I might have been able to see more of the writing on the wall and instead of being “kind of good at each”, I could have been really excellent at any one or two.
You have a certain amount of bandwidth and energy and if you consider how much you spread it around, it seems inconsequential. Little bits of effort and energy here and there can indeed keep you afloat, but imagine if you were to take all those displaced bits of effort and focus them on your life’s priority! It is a really powerful concept
I would love to tell you that I learned this by being so astute and brilliant, but I was forced into it.
When I lost everything including my health, I became laser-focused on staying alive. Everything else be damned! I wasn’t dwelling on regret, or worried about money, or my job. I had a single goal—a single priority. Live. The rest is history. Do I think that I am more gifted or powerful than you? No. I was just forced into a corner that stripped away everything else, but in being there, I saw how by focusing all your energy on a “true north” you are 100x more powerful than you are at any other single effort.
What was learned by me then and I hope that I can share with you now, without you needing to be stripped completely bare is that we need to establish our priority and our purpose and work towards it with that same laser focus. It is only then that you will be able to really harness your own superpower.
In my next post, I will go over some ways in which you can identify your priority and how to clean up some of the clutter and noise that we all have
“Tell me, what is it that you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” — Mary Oliver
