Today we continue the journey to your personal greatness, prosperity, and success. If you succeed as an individual, your family will succeed. Successful families build successful communities. Together, we will change our communities and our nation. Let continue:
FUNDAMENTAL #4: Prioritize
There will be many things you might wish to do or get involved in but time will always be limited to 24 hours in a day. You, therefore, need to prioritize your goals and make sure that the most important and critical goals take precedence. The process of prioritization brings order into your life. It also allows you to fit more things into your limited space of time once you order your activities wisely.
The late Steve R. Covey had a great way of demonstrating the need to prioritize in his practical lessons on time management. He would have a glass jar, some large stones, smaller pebbles, and sand. He would ask a volunteer from the audience to fit all the items into the glass jar. If a person started with the sand, they would fail to fit all the pebbles and stones. But if the person started with the large stones, then the pebbles, and finally the sand, everything would fit. That is what prioritization does to your busy day – you get more done while giving precedence to the most important goals and tasks.
In fundamental #2, I asked you to set goals in the seven major areas of your life. Assuming you did that, I now ask you to re-look at your comprehensive list of goals ranging from financial goals to family goals, to physical goals to spiritual goals and all the other areas. Which ones must be the big stones? Which ones are the pebbles and which goals will be the sand? Decide what will be your main focus areas and which areas will be secondary and then what must be done thereafter.
You will discover that if you properly order your goals and deal with them in order of their priorities, the rest of the goals fall into place. Many perceived successful people are miserable because they failed to prioritize. Some have pursued money at the expense of their health or family. Others have focused so much on developing their careers and business at the expense of their spirituality and social interactions. Others are so spiritual to the extent that they are of no meaningful earthly value.
ACTION: Prioritize your goals. What are the stones in your life? What are the pebbles? And what are the grains of sand? Let the key goals take precedence. Be wise, don’t lose the most important things in your life as you pursue success, prosperity and wealth. May God guide you as you create order in your life and prioritize wisely.
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