Follow Your Passions

It’s quite a bit in to January now - how are your New Year’s Resolutions going? Hopefully the next few posts will reinvigorate and refocus your efforts on improving your life.

A lot of resolutions start out sounding something like this: “I want to lose weight” or “I want to make more money”. Both are good goals, and in fact are goals that, in a form, I hold as well. But they are both questions that require more basic questions to be answered first.

You say you want to lose weight, but why? Is it for increased health benefits? Will it help you feel more attractive? Do you think it will help you advance your career?

Making more money is important to you? Is that because there are items you want, like a house or a new car? Do you want to change your lifestyle to one that demands more income? Are you trying to put away more towards retirement? (And if retirement is the answer, why do you want money for that?)

You get the idea, I hope. The more you can get a good understanding of why you want to accomplish the goals you have set, and the more you write those reasons down and review them, the better you will be at reaching your goals. You’ll have a clearer mental image of the end result. When distractions come your way, you can ask yourself “Do I want to eat this cookie, or would I rather fit into my pants more comfortably?” “Do I want to buy this new pair of boots, or would I rather press the heel of my old boots on the accelerator pedal of my new car?”

Understanding the major themes of your priorities and goals, and being consciously aware of them, is absolutely the ultimate key to success (I’ll talk more about how to do this in the next two posts). And review your themes, priorities, and goals on a regular basis. For two years I filtered everything I did through the five major themes of my family, my wife, my faith, my work, and my health. If something I was considering doing did not enhance one, some, or all of those themes, I usually declined. Now that I am in a constant habit of doing so, and have reworked my life to be strong in those five themes, I am moving on to five new themes that continue helping me build to where I want to be (those five, FYI, are “independence”, “fun”, “creativity”, “Balance”, and “Making a Difference”).

All this may sound rigid to some, but it really doesn’t have to be. It is about focusing more of your time on things that you yourself identify as key priorities for your life, and the more you do it the easier it gets (and the closer you get to where you want to be).

Next Post: “Increasing Self Awareness”