Knowing your Priorities

So you do what’s important and is a priority and if it’s not you don’t and in seriously acknowledging this you can immediately let go of your artificial struggle against time, and you can breathe a sigh of relief and relax ... time is not the enemy.

So what is important to you and what are you priorities? 

You can answer this question by observing, without condemnation or justification, where you spent your time. If you notice you’re spending 4 hrs per day watching TV, then watching TV is a priority and if you spend 16 hrs per day working and 4 hrs per week with your family then your work is your priority and your family is not. 

This is a wonderful release, because then you can just let go of the need to keep telling your partner and family that you love and want to be with them, because you clearly don’t. 

It’s the pretence and the unconscious deceit that painfully suffocates our relationships, you say one thing and your partner wants to believe you, but your behaviour is communicating something quite different and it’s the inconsistency between your words and behaviour that erodes the trust and leads to the inevitable and often traumatic breakdown of the relationship.

In the same way if your friend says that they will do something for you and they don’t, or they say they will call and they forget, then given the context of their day, you and the promise they made was quite obviously not their priority. 

If that same friend consistently misses following though on the promises they make, then their behaviour is clearly showing you that you are not a priority, and as much as that may hurt, it is the truth, and you can’t make your wants or needs the priorities of others in much the same way that they can’t make their needs and wants priorities of yours. 

If you say to yourself that you want to be fit but you find you never go to the gym, then wonderful you can let go of the idea that you really want to be fit because you don’t, and when people ask you can say with confidence and conviction that you have no intention of being fit, and you KNOW this because your behaviour has shown you that it isn’t. 

If you want to be successful you need to know what’s important to you and not what you think is important to you, so I encourage you to make the effort to observe your behaviour because without doubt you behaviour will show you everything you need to know. 

There is a deep sense of alignment and integrity that flows from acknowledging what your priorities are, even though the answer may not be what you want to see or may cause temporary discomfort to you and others. 

The overwhelming temptation is going to lie in either condemning or justifying the behaviour and priorities you observe, and judgement is resistance and resistance is control and control is violence, and it’s this same violence you see and detest in the world, and resist. 

And it’s the Traditional Mindset that works to achieve change and better results through violence and then wonders why you live in a violent world, and it’s the same mindset that seeks to change your behaviour by changing behaviour, which is probably one of the most violent acts you’re capable of. 

If you feel up to it, share you insights and observations with me, I would love to hear what you discover about your real priorities. 

And not to worry we’ll get around to discussing ‘managing your priorities’, but first you just need to know what they really are, because you begin every journey with where you are and not where you would like, believe or hope you are ... right?