Scheduling for Success: Respect Priorities

Last week we talked about setting Values based S.M.A.R.T. Goals. Your goals establish the “what” you will do to achieve your vision and mission. Beyond this, you need to set forth on your work plan; the next steps / tasks.

Your goal related tasks will come in different sizes. The size of the task is irrelevant to it’s importance. If it’s required to achieve your goal, then it is important. Since this is true, it is just as important for you to treat each task with respect and the awareness that it won’t just happen because you’ve identified it and put it in the work plan for your goal.

What does it take to stay on track and make your goal related tasks the priorities they should be?

2 things:
Priority Mindset – Priorities are mission critical.
Priority Scheduling – Priorities are respected.

One does not work without the other. You were hoping for a little bit of magic here, weren’t you? Well, stick with me…

I need to share a path I have been on. I am in the process of writing a book. Actually, I’ve been in the process of writing this book for YEARS!

I have made some huge errors in my efforts to achieve this goal. One of my biggest mistakes, was to believe that my writing could occur when I had open time slots on my schedule. You know where this is going don’t you?

Whenever there was “open” time slots, they were never “available” for my writing. Something always seemed to fill them up. Sometimes, those things appeared to be priorities that had to be done right then and there. And, sometimes, those things were simply genuine time wasters like “I really should get the laundry done today” or “I’ve got some time, I can run that errand real quick.”

I couldn’t begin to tell you how many times the date to finish my book has changed. Painful.

My journey to achieve this goal has been painful for several reasons:
– knowing I have not been obedient to what the Lord called me to do
– beating myself up over and over again for not following through each time I would “begin again”
– having this goal constantly hanging over my head
– wasting tons of time in not working efficiently
– shedding tears for many reasons
– losing my passion and patience

It’s been tough! And, the thing is, it didn’t have to be this way! You can probably relate to some of these pain points from some of your goal related journeys.
Let’s get back to the so-called “magic”.

Well, you know there is no such thing as magic. There is prayer, clarity of your God-ordained Personal Platform and commitment to your platform. When you stay in this lane, you will be amazed at what God will do!

The first thing you must do is have the right mindset. For help on your mindset check out the blog links at the bottom of this article.

[Tweet “If you don’t see your goal(s) as critical to your mission you won’t stay committed to them.”]

If you went through the effort we’ve been talking about for the last 5 weeks, to build your Personal Platform, then you should have clarity on why your goals are critical to accomplishing what God has called you to do.

Without a doubt I knew that God called me to write my book. Even so, I did not treat it as mission critical. I did for a while, but it didn’t last when the going got tough. There are practices we need to engage to ensure we keep priorities straight and to stay motivated. I’ll be talking about these in next weeks article: “Achieving Success: Boundaries.”

[Tweet “There is no point in goals if they aren’t critical enough to be a priority.”]

The second thing you must do is schedule the tasks as a priority. You must respect your priorities. Determine what is worthy of your most precious commodity, the resource you can never renew; your time. Schedule those priorities to your calendar. The time slot they occupy should be just as protected as the time slot for meeting with your number one client or the doctor appointment you have scheduled.

If you have a goal(s) and the relative tasks are not worthy of being considered a priority on your schedule, then it isn’t a goal worth having. It may be an exercise in, “this is what I should do,” but it won’t be an exercise in “this is what I will do.”

I began to follow priority scheduling for the writing portion of my book. I’ve been doing it now for 6 weeks. When I do my weekly planning (I do mine on Friday mornings), my book is at the top of my list for my priorities. Remember, a priority is something WORTHY of your precious time. Anything you consider worthy of your time should be something that God would value.

The progress I have made is nothing short of miraculous!

Not only am I staying true to my priorities, but I am honing my skills at the same time.

Just placing your priorities on you calendar won’t automatically make you stick to them. You have to believe these tasks are critically important because your mission is critically important.

When I stay true to my scheduled priorities, I am making continual forward movement in alignment with who I am (core values) and why I am (life purpose, vision, mission). This keeps my overall well-being in a good place. Changes or disruptions don’t rattle me, I handle them with relative ease which keeps me on track. It’s a beautiful thing!

Only you can determine what your true priorities are. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, if you have done the Personal Platform work to know what God is calling you to do with your life, then you know what your priorities are.

Only you can determine that they will be treated with the respect they deserve:

Priority Mindset – Priorities are mission critical.
Priority Scheduling – Priorities are respected.

“Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives.”
Galatians 5:25 (MSG)

Just like the effort to have clarity about your life, staying in a priority mindset and sticking to priority scheduling can be best executed with a coach at your side. I would love to come along side you to help you achieve the success you were designed for.