Amanda: Hi guys. Welcome back to the podcast. I am Amanda.
Laura: I'm Laura
Kendra: I'm Kendra.
Amanda: Kendra has a sexy voice today from her respiratory illness.
Kendra: I still identify as female
Amanda: Today we are going to discuss something very important, which is priorities.
Kendra: Yes, priorities. It is something that I personally struggle with and feel that are changing all the time. Not necessarily because I make that intentional change, but it seems like sometimes life directs them. But we are here to talk about how we can make the choice, and how we can make priorities work for us.
So we all have the same 1,440 minutes in each day. Sometimes we are not so careful or may be a little reckless with how we spend those minutes. But what if I told you we actually had $1,440 each day? You would probably be a little more intentional about how we allocated that money. Especially if we had to do that much money each day.
We know that sometimes we have distractions, and sometimes we have things that are unexpected and come up. But if we can start each day by planning, we can utilize this 1,440 minutes actually to work for us. Steven Covey once asked how much time do we spend on urgent rather than important things during the day?
So, things like, how often do we check our phone every times it gives us a notification? You feel like, we've kind of trained our brains to say that every noise, ping, notification is urgent, but I would say the majority of them are not important. The more that we constantly react to what we think as urgent causes throughout our days (but they might not necessarily be important), actually the less planning we have done for that day. So the less attention or intentionality that you've given to what's important to you, the more rushed or the more inability to cope with maybe the unexpected or the emergent. And so the Oxford diction actually defines priority as: the thing that is regarded as more important than another. So we can start the discussion with talking about urgent things versus important things, and how we even put things in the priority bucket.
Laura: I really love that analogy of the money because if you think about your notifications, and if every time you look at one, you're throwing some of that money. I don't know…
Amanda: Yeah, like yesterday, I probably gave a hundred bucks to TikTok and I probably wouldn’t if it were money. The other thing that Kendra mentioned was that if you're constantly reacting to urgent things but not important things, the less planning you've done. That is perfectly illustrated by if you tried to- if you're waiting till today to find reservations for a party of 50, that's a lot more effort and time spent than if you would have done that maybe two weeks ago. It would've been a lot easier. So being very intentional with like- if stuff's always blowing up, then maybe there does need to be a little bit more intentionality and thinking with your prefrontal cortex. Because it will save you time actually.
Yep. So, why do we even need priorities?
We want to live our lives in a way that we are honoring the things that are most important to us. That's how we get to the end of our life and are able to look back and say that we lived a life full of meaning. And that we created our lives intentionally rather than just allowing it to happen to us. And so having priorities will help us structure our lives, and we structure our lives by structuring our individual days. It helps us to make decisions when we know that when we say yes to something, that's going to take some of our time, or our $1,440, then we are having to say no to something else.
And so having our priorities in order will help us to make those decisions in a way that is most in alignment with how we want to live and how we want to show up in the world. It gives us the confidence to say no to things that don't matter as much and are not the wisest use of our time. Using our dollar analogy, things that we might pick up at The Dollar Tree for our kids when they're little and are just kind of a waste of money. We don't wanna be doing that with our time and with our lives. We wanna make sure that we're spending it on things that are really important. Having priorities helps us identify the things that are truly needed in our life versus what someone else thinks is important. And if our goals are specific results that we want to achieve in our lives, then priorities are the things that we need that help us to say yes or no in order to reach our goals.
We love this quote by Alexander den Heijer. And it says, “You often feel tired. Not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.” And so, as we're going about the things we do during the day, it's helpful to pay attention to what is truly inspiring. What are the things that we're doing that are lighting us up, that are helping us feel meaning in life? I personally feel a lift. I feel a lot of increased energy. There are things that I notice that give me more energy and make me feel more inspired. And for me, some of those things are coaching for one. I love coaching. It is so exciting and fun to see a change in a person's demeanor- how they can feel so much more hope and optimism after just 30 minutes of talking. I love helping kids and using coaching tools with kids, my own kids and other people's kids, to help them catch a vision for themselves. Those are the things that really light me up the most. And you probably have things that similarly light you up. Pay attention to those things. Those need to be your priorities.
So think about Your Top Five. What are the five biggest things that you would consider priorities in your life? And then think about the last, like, think about yesterday, or last week, or even last year. Are those things in alignment? Are we spending the time that we want to be spending on the things that are our priorities? Or are we spending all our money on TikTok and Instagram or whatever?
Amanda: Yeah, I will say to you, like with my reading on this too, it's not even saying that it has to be proportional. But what you need to decide is: are you allocating enough to that particular priority? Some of your priorities may not require as much time as others. So it's not even like that. But just knowing what your top five are and knowing that you're paying attention to them enough would be, I think, the goal.
Laura: Absolutely. Yeah. Doesn't mean you can't ever, you know, spend a little indulgent time on social media. Absolutely not.
Amanda: Maybe not a hundred bucks worth.
Laura: Maybe, I dunno. But know what it is you wanna spend there. Know what it is that you want to spend.
And just remember that we don't actually have to do anything. There is nothing that we have to do. There is no one holding a gun to your head saying you have to get up and go to your job. There is no one. Thankfully, we live in a free society, and no one is telling you that you have to say certain words, that you have to do any particular job. You don't have to clean your house. You don't even have to love your children. You don't have to.
Amanda: You don't have to. There's plenty of people on the planet who have dumped their kids off and took off. I mean, the truth of the matter is you're probably choosing not to do that because you love your kids. But even that, you don't have to do anything. We have this all the time with our clients, like, “well, you don't understand if I don't do this at work, then no one will.” Okay, well then no one will, right?
But you don't have to do that unless somebody is shackling you with a handcuff and dragging you in to do it. But you're getting in your own car and driving, but then you're also feeling like you're at the affect rather than at least getting to own that you made that decision. And maybe that's the best decision for you right now.
Laura: Yep. We talk a lot about agency in coaching and that is that you have the ability to choose. You get to choose everything. Everything that you are experiencing in life right now, almost all of it is a result of choices that you've made. And we get to do that, and we get to have a future based on the choices we're making now as well. And for me personally, choosing to love my children as a priority in my life, brings me tremendous fulfillment, but it is a choice that I make. And so, no matter where in your life you feel stuck or feel like you don't have a choice, we really invite you to reconsider that. And ask yourself, “Really what would happen if I wasn't the PTA president this year? What would happen if I cut my shifts to part-time?” Really, put yourself, I mean, and if one of your priorities is not your own wellbeing, I also invite you to reconsider that too.
Our priorities can change depending on the season of our life. Our diaper changing used to be a priority. It is not anymore, thankfully. But just, as things look different in that way, our priorities can, and typically do, change over time. We don't want to spend equal time on each priority- just the right amount of time. We want to be intentional and think about what it is that we wanna allocate to each priority. And we don't want to necessarily give the same amount of time to taking care of our house as we do to our family, it just doesn't make sense.
Amanda: If it doesn't light you up, it is a valuable question to ask, “Is this something that you could outsource so that you could spend more time in alignment with your priorities?” It's an option. Yes. And it's viable. Maybe it's not, but it is an option to consider.
Laura: Yes. The very most important results that you want right now in your life, that's where your priorities need to lie. This is your life. You're creating it. Think about where you want to be in the future, what you want that person to look like, to be like, to feel, the relationships you want that person to have. And make choices now. Just like you think about your retirement account, that investment account. How much money you want to allocate to say real estate or the stock market or bonds or cash? What you want your account to look like later is gonna be determined by the choices you make now, and that's the same for your whole life. So think about how we want to allocate our time so that we have the result and the future that we want to have. And just remember every little decision that we make, every minute we decide to spend, is a choice. We get to choose. You get to choose. You do not have to do any of these things.
The world, if we drop, if I dropped dead, any of us dropped dead tomorrow, the world would keep going. It would keep going. And nothing, you know, I mean, there would be change, but it would, it's almost like if your skin gets cut, it just, it would heal back over. There might be a scar, but life would carry on. So it's all a choice. You don't have to do anything.
Amanda: I think that's a good point too. Like if you drop dead tomorrow- well, a lot of people feel like their kids should be their very top priority, but if you're not taking care of yourself- do you see what I'm, you know, where I'm going with this? Like, if you drop dead tomorrow, your kids are kind of left in a bit of a quandary, you know? So maybe it would've been good to move yourself a little higher on the list, and do enough there. It's just an interesting thing, ‘cause we do see people that put themselves very last, and I just wonder if that's really serving them in the way that they think that it is.
Laura: No. Or even serving the other people that they're trying to serve. Yeah, it does not. It doesn't set a good example for your children to see their parents not taking care of themselves. It doesn't set a good example for anyone who's looking to you as a role model to see you not taking care of yourself, especially with this mindset stuff.
Amanda: And especially in healthcare, like if you've never seen somebody who's establishing boundaries and making this job more sustainable for the long term. There's something about the first person who starts doing that that gives permission, like almost as a trailblazer. Sometimes, maybe you could consider yourself the trailblazer for showing people and giving them that permission to start taking care of themselves too. I feel like there's some sort of peer pressure that we all have to just keep bludgeoning ourselves with impossible demands at work. Like instead of thinking of being selfish, what if you are really the example of what's possible?
Laura: Yes. Yes. Like leaving on time with your charts done. Is that a selfish thing? No, like that is really what we…
Amanda: If we go back to that quote: you often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you. Is charting really what's lighting up your life? No. Well, we can wrap this up and get outta here.
Laura: That's right.
Amanda: I heard some charting coaches that are like, just flush the toilet already. Like, just go. It doesn't need to be perfect. And you don't need to be bringing that stuff home sometimes. And that's something that we can work with you on.
We've been sold this idea of having it all. Well, that's a little difficult, right? If you are allocating all, you only have the 1440 minutes in a day, right? So allocating your funds to every single thing maybe doesn't get you moving in the direction that you want. So if you need help with figuring out what your priorities are, these are some common areas that people have. And again, it will change. If you get a life threatening diagnosis, you hopefully are gonna move to the top of the list and the kids might move lower. Work might be higher and lower, depending on the stage of your life. There's lots of things, but here's some common categories:
Work
Family
Health
Home
Relationships
Friendships
Hobbies
Recreation & fun (Yes. It is important for you to have some fun.)
Self-care
Personal growth
Sports
Spirituality
Religion
Money
Volunteering
Some of those may resonate with you. Some may not. Those are clues to what your priorities are. It's just requiring you to give a little bit of thought to it.
Here's another question, from our mentor, Brooke Castillo at The Life Coach School. Ask yourself this:
1. If you had six months to live, how would you live it?
2. If you had five years to live, would you make any changes from how you're living now? The truth of the matter is we are not guaranteed anything. And so if you knew you only had five years left to live and you know, immediately, “well, I would stop doing this. I would start doing this.” That is important information to know.
3. When you're 100 years old, looking back on your life, what will you regret most NOT doing? Did you NOT go for a dream of yours? Did you NOT repair a relationship? I did see, I don't even know where it was, a meme or something like that. But it was like, if you would forgive them on your deathbed, it's probably okay to go ahead and do it now. It's just something, you know what I mean? Like you maybe don't have to carry that with you if it's not worth it on the last moment of your life. Maybe it's not worth it now. Would you regret not creating something new? Would you regret not pursuing that thing that you always dreamed of. And the most important thing- are you willing to live with that regret?
The incredible thing about that exercise is that by doing that, you get to have your do over now. And if you make those changes that you know that you would've when you're 100. If you take your own advice, from the 100 year old you. If there's things you know you would stop doing, if there's things you know you would start doing, if there's relationships that you would repair, if you know, you would spend your time in a different way, start that do over now. You will live more invigorated and more powerfully when you take charge of your life. And spend those 1440 minutes in a much more intentional way. Make those deposits where you want to make those deposits.
Laura: Yeah. And real quickly, going back to the forgiving someone now. I just wanna share that you can forgive someone, even if they aren't sorry. If someone has done something to you or violated a trust, or you have issues with a relationship, they don't have to apologize. They don't have to be any different than they currently are. And continuing to hold resentment towards that person is taking poison and expecting it to hurt them. It's only hurting you. Just let that go. Let it go.
Amanda: Right, right, right. When something is in the past, it's literally only alive in your mind when you revisit it. It's gone for everybody else. So when you are harboring that resentment or whatever, and I get it, listen, I can, I can hold a resentment, but it's only being experienced by me.
It's not affecting that other person at all. It's only within me that that situation is real. The rest of the world has moved on. So it's worth considering if it's serving you or if it's really holding you back to not move on from that.
Laura: Yeah. Absolutely. I just think it's so exciting to know that we can create whatever life we want, we just have to know our priorities.
Kendra: Yes. And I will say that that notion of regret. I'll tell you one of my favorite things in a priority for me is making time to spend with my daughter in the kitchen and just cooking. And I'll tell you last night was a great example. She made some brownie batter cookie dough, and I'll tell you if I lived to a hundred, and I did not eat that brownie batter cookie dough, I would regret that most immensely. I would not know how to deal with myself if I made it to a hundred, and I didn't take advantage of that situation. So…
Amanda: I'm glad you were spared on that.
Kendra: Yes. Yeah. So I indulged myself, and it was a joyous time and shared by all. So, but anyways, we hope that you were able to just be more intentional as you start thinking about setting your priorities. Talking about what's urgent versus what's important, what you would prioritize, what it looks like to start planning at the beginning of the week what each day looks like. And then just to know some provocative questions about whether you had six months to live, five years to live, looking back on your life, any of those questions to get you started to think about how you could have a do over now.
So until next time you are whole, you are a gift to medicine, and the work you do matters.
