5 Questions To Ask When Prioritizing Your Current Life Path
Bud / 
20 Comments / 
July 13th, 2010 / 
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Let’s face it. Life can, at times, be overwhelming. With so much to keep us busy in our everyday lives things can get a bit out of hand. Learning to properly prioritize what’s important in life comes in handy down the road, yet unfortunately many of us aren’t very good at deciding what really matters. I’ll be the first to admit that prioritizing has been a weak point of mine for quite sometime, but I’ve slowly discovered ways in which you can make decisions much less stressful while staying congruent with what you want out of life.
I’ve found by asking yourself a few questions when deciding how you spend your time, you can increase your productivity and overall happiness substantially. Asking questions not only helps you get more done but also allows you to do work that matters rather than just going through the motions. The following are 5 questions to ask yourself when reflecting on your current life path.
What If I Didn’t Do This?
When you’re contemplating starting a new habit or life direction start with the question: What would happen if I didn’t do it?
If you didn’t start a new business would you remain miserable, hating your current career?
If you didn’t exercise would your health continue to suffer?
If you didn’t check email would your business implode?
If you didn’t follow your passion would you be cheating the world out of something great?
If you didn’t spend time with your family would your bonds continue to grow?
If by inaction the world doesn’t become worse off chances are your time could be better spent. On the contrary if you’re inaction fails to better the world and those around you, you may want to take the leap and do what you can to make tomorrow an improved yesterday.
Asking yourself if what you choose to do will matter is an important step in setting proper priorities in your life.
Will This Benefit A Year Down The Road?
The fact of the matter is, many of those who claim to be “busy” are busy doing non important stuff. While there are obviously some daily chores you have to take care of, it’s important to maximize your time with actions that will benefit the future.
Will what you’re doing just have a short term affect? Or will it have a lasting impact a year from now? If you focus on where your actions will take you in the future you’re more likely to choose the ones that will pay off down the road.
Don’t waste your time with activities that will only please you for today or tomorrow. Instead spend your time working for a better future and progression in your goals.
While writing this blog post I had numerous urges to check Twitter and Facebook but I knew that writing this article would prove to be more beneficial in the long run. Don’t settle for the short run, remind yourself that your actions now affects the world for years to come.
In every endeavor you choose to take on, make sure you’re not only thinking about now but keeping the future in mind as well.
What Are My Motivations?
It’s not my place to judge why you do or don’t do something but you at least owe it to yourself to know why you’re going down a particular path. Are your actions geared to benefit you? Or are you doing it for the good of others? Perhaps you’re you’re doing both.
Are you trying to make money with you current goals? Are you hoping to improve your brand among your peers? Or an different reason entirely?
Becoming aware of why you’re doing some of the things you do can pay significant dividends in discovering what does or doesn’t inspire you. Inspiration to you is like the what the sun is to the earth. Life can only exist in a climate rich with inspiration.
Make sure that your current path is being walked not because your friends or family want you to, but because that’s the path you know you need to walk. Don’t lie to yourself about your motivations. Be open to the reasons you act the way you do. It’s quite easy to tell if you’re hearts in what you’re doing or if you’re simply putting on a show.
What are your motivations? Are you being honest with yourself?
Does It Matter?
A simple yet powerful question people often forget to ask. Does it matter? At the end of the day everything you do should be of some worth to you or someone else.
For an entire day get in the habit of asking yourself “does it matter?” when you’re contemplating on what steps to take next.
Does spending time with your kids matter? Does writing a blog post that could benefit hundreds of people matter? Does checking Facebook? Email? Or Twitter matter? That’s up for you to decide.
Does it matter? If not don’t waste your time.
Is This Consistent With Who I Want To Be?
When walking down an new and exciting path it’s often useful to check in with yourself. Would the person you want to be do this? Would they they be walking down this road?
While I sincerely believe the majority of people have good intentions we all get lost every now and again. This doesn’t make you a bad person but that doesn’t excuse you from checking in with the person upstairs.
There have been times in my life where I knew what I was doing was wrong yet I continued to do them anyways. It wasn’t long before I knew I had strayed from the person I wanted to be and quickly recovered.
If what you’re doing doesn’t resonate with your values and beliefs it’s entirely up to you to realign so that they fit the bill of who you want to be. This isn’t always easy of course, but in the end you know whether you’re where you want to be.
Don’t waste another day going through the motions. Take a moment to figure out the life you really want to live.
What are your priorities? Are are your actions consistent with what you really want? Or are you spinning your wheels pretending you’re someone you’re not? If so a conversation with yourself may do the trick.
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i like the idea of asking questions to determine the importance of something, thanks bud
Thanks a lot man. Glad you enjoyed it.
A good set of questions.
What this really highlights is the fact that we so rarely actually think about why we are doing the actions we are doing.
Another valuable skill is to be able to enjoy the journey. If you choose to trade enjoyment today for enjoyment tomorrow it is worth your time to figure out how to make the journey enjoyment within you aswell.
Being in the moment in action, and long term focused in choosing action is how I like to play: Time to Create your Perception of Time
love the article! ill put them on my wall in the room and in my office cubicle for everyday verification !
Bud,
I agree there are many important questions to ask ourselves when starting a new project or taking a new route in life. I think a good first step is making sure what we intend to do matches up with our values and life goals. The more awareness we have about why we’re doing something, the more clarity we have to tackle the endeavor. I think two other very important questions to ask are “what’s the worst that could happen” and more importantly “what’s the best thing that could happen” by us moving forward and taking action.
Hi Bud,
I don’t have a lot to add, but just wanted to tell you that I enjoyed reading this article and that it really got me thinking of some of the answers to the questions. This one is going to stick with me, so thanks for sharing it.
Karen
Hi Bud,
These are solid questions to help identify what is really important. It is not willy-nilly opinions, but crystal clear visions that encourage us to create our future. When you catch your first glimpse of the power of clear vision – that is enough! You will never go back. Once you create a ‘Felt-vision’(a clear vision of your future that you can feeeel) there are only those things that support it or distract from it. The only way to create a ‘Felt-vision’ is to turn deep within and listen intently … you will be awe-struck by what you find.
Great article! These questions will help people figure out what they want to do because most people have no idea what they want to do. Others are afraid to do what they want. Feel the fear and do it anyway. Shift the ‘paradigm’ in your mind and you’ll go far!
When you’re working for a better future and progression in your goals, what happens to living in the now? I’m guessing the key word here is balance?
Great article anyway! Copying it down in my notebook to guide me back on path when I walk sideways. Cheers
Glad it helped Mike!
If you’re not aligned with your values it’s sure to cause you problems down the road. Thanks for your comment joe.
Unfortunately, so many today do not have their values clearly defined and when that is the case, other people will decide for you. That rarely works out well either.
A really great list of questions, Bud. Thanks for reminding me of these. Sometimes life gets so hectic, you forget to plan ahead and make stupid, on-the-spot decisions which come back to bite you in the behind.
I’ve always asked myself if what I am doing is getting me closer or further away from my goals and the good old rocking chair questions – when I am 99, sitting on my rocking horse, will it matter if I did or did not do this?
Bud, another great post my friend. When I work one on one with folks, I like to have them do a “values inventory.” I give them a list of values, and have them place them in order of importance to them.
This allows us to determine what would be the most fulfilling path, and get them on it. By prioritizing your values, you can make sure your actions are in line with what you believe.
Cheers!
Great advice here. I particularly like “What if I didn’t do this?”. Even in the most stressed of lives, a question like that makes some space and gives you a nice feeling of freedom.
Regarding motivations, I’d also like to say something: it is essential to investigate them, but I think there is also a risk for too self-conscious people: the risk of elaborating too much, of writing long and profound lists but never start the task because “you’re not clear enough”.
Bang on Bud! No.1 does it for me. I have re-applied that question to some of my current and older projects and wish I’d asked (known) it before as some could have been shelved or abandoned. Gladly it has also firmly pressed the, ‘Go’ button on a couple of others. My life path is free from a few weeds now and I can see a lot more clearly where it’s going. Altogether now……’follow the yellow brick road’. Truly brill post that’s helped in so many ways. Appreciated hombre.
If you didn’t exercise would your health continue to suffer? Those who say no to this are delusional..lol. It’s like saying if i stand in the rain butt naked i won’t get a cold. Well of course, you will. People just need to do what they know needs to be done. Then they will be more happy with themselves and achieve more.
Great post, if your priorities and your actions are consistent with you core values then the results you get in your life will be much more value. A good set of core values to start with would be appreciation, humility, valor, compassion, understanding and forgiveness. You can Google “core values list” and find the values that resonate with you and where you are currently in your life. Keep the list posted and review it often to get the best results. Try to keep your list around ten core values.