Establishing Your Priorities

When I was in Trenton, New Jersey yesterday giving a seminar, I asked if anyone in the audience had established written priorities for their life. I have to admit that I wasn't surprised when only a few people in the audience raised their hand.

So I had them do a simple exercise that I'd like to share with you. It's an important exercise that everyone should do. You simply make a list of your priorities, what's most important, next in importance, and so on.

You ask yourself, "What's the most important thing in my life?" You write that down after the number one; then go to the next. This can often be an extremely revealing exercise. Sometimes, it can bring out the complete reordering of our lives in that we can find that our real priorities and what we're working for are two different things.

For example, the first item on your list might be family. "What does my family want? Is what I'm doing now contributing to the best interests of my family, my spouse's interests, my interests, and the interests of my children?"

You might list work as priority number two."Did I choose this line of work because it's the one in which I have the greatest interest or did I sort of fall into it because it came along and I needed a paycheck? If this is not the kind of work in which I find the most interest, what is?"

Perhaps your third priority is income. "Does my income meet my requirements? Or do I put up with it because of habit, or fear of change, or some false notion of security? If it does not meet my real requirements, what are they? Maybe they're a lot less than I think they are."

Maybe if we simplified our lives, limited our wants to the real fundamentals, we'd be a lot better off, a whole lot less in debt, and a lot happier.

What about retirement? So few people today, especially young people, even think about the subject of retirement which is why the majority of our population find themselves flat broke or nearly so when they want to retire and therefore have to keep working.

Retirement and financial literacy is priority that should be near the top of your list, otherwise you will find yourself someday among the millions of people who are or will be nearly broke when retirement age rolls around.

Making a list of priorities is fun. If you've never done it before, it can be surprisingly revealing. You can find out what's most important and what isn't. You might find that you've been knocking yourself out for some of the wrong things.