Evaluate and Order Your Priorities

Now that you know what is most important to you and what you want to do with your life, you are going to have to decide where to focus and put your time and energy first.

At this point, you may be confused, because you just went through and decided what your priorities are. Is that enough? Well, no, because you must rank them and decide what you are going to do in what order. Since your time and energy are limited, you cannot spread yourself too thin or you will not make any progress.

You have decided that your top three priorities in life are as follows: start a family, go back to school, and climb Mt. Fiji. Obviously, these three cannot be done at the same time. You must choose what to do first.

If one is the most important, you are going to have to decide to focus on that and put the others off until later. If starting a family is most important, then work on that while putting off school and Mt. Fiji until your kids are older. If they are equally important, which do you do first?

You can decide in any way you choose, from randomly selecting one to reevaluating which is most important. You can also use logic to help you order them. For example, let us say that you will be better able to support a family after you finish school, so you can decide that school comes first.

Likewise, you can use logic to realize that you might not be healthy enough to climb Mt. Fuji after you have gone to school, started a family, and waited for your kids to be old enough for you to go to Japan. So maybe Mt. Fiji comes first, right after school or on a school break.

You are going to have to do this with all your priorities. Which ones come first, second, third, etc? Some may overlap. Let us say that getting a better job and buying a house are both on the list. One obviously contributes to the other.

Some may be diametrically opposed or contradictory, so you must make another hard decision.

When you have finished this, you can set some SMART goals, make an overall plan, and get started, with a new focus and direction in your life.