Here’s my take on it: Successful people are masters at getting to the “important but not urgent” stuff.
The biggest challenge that most of my clients have is in getting to the items that are “important but not urgent.” Because to attain many goals, there are things that you need to do that are developmental or that build the infrastructure that will enable you to achieve your ultimate target.
An example of this can be when someone decides they want to run a marathon. Everyone knows you cannot just go out and run a marathon. You need to prepare and train for it. And you can’t just train two days before. So, to run in a marathon, you need to make time for the training in a routine way, usually months in advance.
You can apply this analogy to achieving a certain career goal, a financial goal, or a community or interpersonal goal. You need to make time for the building blocks. You need to understand that success in life is a process, not a destination. This is where most people struggle.
What happens is that the short range “to-do’s” on our ever-present lists trump the long range investments. We all do it. We like to check off items on our action lists, even though they might not relate to our long-range goals. It feels good. But unfortunately, is not getting us to those long range goals that are truly important to us
How to rejigger your priorities? Here are a few thoughts:
- Know what they are. Spend time developing your 10 day, 10 week, 10 month, and yes… 10 year goals.
- Evaluate your to do list. Make sure there are some actions in your daily action lists that relate to your longer range goals.
- Set monthly and weekly goals that relate to your longer range goals. Do this in addition to your daily lists.
- Check those longer range goal lists against your daily lists.
- Create “Me-meetings.” (see our next Wednesday post for this one!)
It’s amazing what happens when you write your goals. Try it!
