Setting priorities in life an d business are crucial to success.

I’ve been struggling with something lately and I’m just starting to take control of it.  I have been extremely busy, but not very productive.

I’m sure many of you have experienced this at one time or another.  You fill your day and at the end of it, you wonder where did all my time go?  In your head you hear, “I seem to have lost my day.”

Well, that’s been happening to me and I have decided, I am taking control, and I am going to prioritize. That is the important thing. So what’s the step that you need to take before you prioritize everything?

First, you must know what “everything” is.

This needs to be done for both business and personal goals.

Focus on the things that will actually move you forward NOW. This applies in your life as well as in business.

For our life goals we can ask ourselves the following questions. What are the things that are important to you? What are your priorities? Are you making yourself a priority? A lot of the time we don’t.

If you do I am so proud of you.  If not, don’t be hard on yourself, it isn’t always easy to do.

Here is a little exercise that is going to help you to figure out what the things are that you should be focusing on to improve your life.

I suggest you have a notebook for the exercises you will get here.

You will need a minimum of half an hour to do this and I recommend you set aside a full hour if possible.

Find a quiet spot with no distractions, set a timer so you don’t watch the clock.  In your notebook write down the answers to “What are the things that are important to me?”

You can include things that are part of your dream day and things that bring you up when you are down.

I you could do anything, time was no object, money was no object, what are the things that you would do?  Make sure those are on your list.

Are there things that when you get to the end of your life, and look back, that you will regret not having done them?

Is there a trip that you want to take? Do you want to go back to a place where you were born? Do you want to reach back out to somebody that you haven’t seen in a long time? What are the things that you will regret not doing?

At first, you will have thoughts tumbling over each other to get out of your head. After probably 15 minutes or so that should start to dry up.

This is when your brain will start to dig to come up with more for you.  You will then start unpacking the older memories of goals you have forgotten about.  This is why we take an hour to do this.  Our minds are very powerful and will try to please us by delivering answers.

Take the time and let your mind go through the process of coming up with all the extra things that were buried and forgotten. Now you have your list ready for prioritizing.

Prioritizing starts with answering which ones mean the most to you as well as which ones will give the biggest reward for the time invested to do them. Rewards are measured in many ways including health, joy, wealth and more.

Can you get anyone else to do some of the tasks necessary on the list?  That may free some of your time for other things.

When trying to reach your goals, I want you to make sure that you are taking micro steps. What is the smallest action possible?  If you have an entire room to de-clutter breaking it down into one drawer or section at a time will significantly increase the likelihood of you completing it.

That seems like a small ridiculous step to some of you but I guarantee the motivation or willpower required to do the task decreases exponentially when you are taking micro steps toward your goal.

Lastly, I want you to recognize that every step toward a goal counts. It doesn’t matter the size of the step, as long as you are moving, you will reach the goal eventually.  And as you see progress, you will find more motivation to do more so your actions will likely become larger all on their own.  Like a snowball rolling downhill it grows and picks up momentum.

As always, there is more information in the video, but this gives you most of the action steps.

  • 1 hour for sitting quietly with a notebook listing all your goals and dreams
  • Prioritize them
  • Get help with any if you can.
  • Set up the smallest steps possible to start moving toward reaching the goals
  • Do it

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