What Are The Five Most Important Things In Your Life?
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
I grew up in the golden age of kid’s movies. Whether it was a quest to save your town in The Goonies, making contact and befriending a stranded alien in ET, or encountering your parents as you travel through time and are faced with making sure they fall in love or you'll cease to exist in Back To The Future. The stories inspired a life of adventure, exploration and uncovering the person you didn't know you were capable of becoming.
Yet somewhere along the journey, you probably lost touch with that creative kid. The rush and chaotic pace of life does a good job of keeping you busy, distracted and feeling like you don't have time. That kid isn't gone. He's still there. Connecting with him is like connecting with an old friend. You can pick up exactly where you left off.
I throw on The Goonies and it feels like I'm transported back to my eight-year-old self. I had my priorities on lock. Skateboarding, hanging out with friends and playing video games was life.
As adults, we're plagued with responsibility, commitments and endless obligations. In a lot of cases, we could give two shits about them, but we feel trapped because it's the adult thing to do.
The things that are truly important to us take a back seat to everything else on our plate. Hell, I'd argue that a lot of us have forgotten what's important because our lives are on autopilot.
One of the first conversations I have with clients is about getting a clear sense of what their life looks like in the day to day.
Try doing it yourself right now. Use today or yesterday as an example. From the time you woke up until now, what took place?
Cell phone alarm goes off, roll over and grab your phone, see that you have a couple of emails for work, friends tagged you on Instagram about a Game of Thrones parade for pugs, and before you know it you're scarfing down your breakfast and jumping in the shower in a mad dash for work. Driving to work you promise yourself that tonight you're going to call your Mom (despite telling yourself the same story for the last week). You have a couple of projects on the go so the logical thing to do is jump on Facebook, or talk to Terry about where you guys are gonna head for lunch. You're able to get some work done, but you're not sure if you focused on something that's the best use of your time. The afternoon comes and you're dreading the fact you committed to a networking event. Meaning you can't meet up with friends and you're going to have to cancel gym class or else you won't get a chance to eat dinner. And you'll be too rushed to call Mom so that'll have to wait for another day.
Maybe this doesn't happen every day, but are you worried this could become your default? You see Terry walk through the office like an extra from The Walking Dead. Sure, he's here, but is he showing up with everything he's capable of? Prolly not.
I follow up that conversation with one powerful question.
Is how you're living today serving how you want to live your life?
Unless you're one of the few people who are intentionally designing their day to make the most of it, there's a slim chance you've given it much thought. School taught you to play the part of a cog. Fit in, bury your head and don't ask questions. Life is the way it is and this is the hand you've been dealt. Poor Terry doesn't have a chance. His sense of creativity was crushed long ago.
The multimedia and creativity powerhouse Adobe interviewed 5,000 adults in the U.S., U.K., Germany, France and Japan "to get a gut feel for how people are feeling about creativity today," said senior VP-marketing at Adobe, Ann Lewnes. Nearly two-thirds of the people surveyed believe that being creative is valuable to society and a staggering seven in 10 US adults believe that being creative is valuable to the economy. This is where the weight of those numbers explains so much about job dissatisfaction, lack of meaning and frustration with the work we do.
Of all the people surveyed, 75% believe they're not living up to their creative potential.
Think about that for a second. That's like the taxman coming every pay period and saying for every dollar you make, he's going to let you keep 25 cents for being such a good sport. There's no way in hell you're going to be able to live the kind of life you want if your needs aren't being met.
I'm speaking to the 75% here, this is something you have control over. Creativity is your sense of adventure, exploration and the willingness to do work that scares you. This is what helps you uncover the person you know you're capable of becoming.
Think of today as a chance to start again with what's most important.
The first and best place to take back control of your life is by getting creative in how you design your day.
1 - What are the five most important things in your life?
When I took the time to really think about what's important to me, these are my ride or die.
Writing
Family, friends and Lindsey
Health
Learning
Fun
2 - What do you do in your day to get the most out of each of these?
Writing - Committing to a weekly blog post gives me an opportunity to look at the world with a fresh set of eyes. I pick a keyhole to enter into a bigger story about the world and anything I read, watch or consume through the week becomes part of the story I'm trying to tell. It lets me connect the dots to my experiences. It also gives purpose to my day and puts an intention to what I consume.
Family, friends and Lindsey - This is by far the hardest area for me to stay on top of. It is for a lot of people who are focused on their careers and businesses. We tend to neglect the things that we assume will always be there.
I make an effort to grab coffee or breakfast with my parents at least once a week. I'll text my sister a couple of times throughout the week and make sure that I'm not going longer than a month between seeing her, my niece and brother-in-law. Every Sunday we head to Lindsey's sister’s place for dinner. And Lindsey is what keeps me walking in the real world. How she puts up with my hyper-focus at times is beyond me. We schedule a date night each week. But this is definitely an area where if I'm to answer Is how I'm living today serving how I want to live my life? the answer would be no. I don't make enough time for fun with Lindsey so I've started to be intentional about bringing more of that into my life.
Health - At the start of the week I'll schedule at least four yoga classes. I'll also schedule 1-2 strength classes. The hope is to get back to 3-4 x a week, but I've been taking my time bringing this back into my life after I put my back out. I meal plan each week using the app MealLime so all my dinners and lunches are taken care of. We're flexitarians (eat mainly vegetarian, but will still eat meat). This app lets me plan our meals in less than five minutes. My aim is to meditate 3-5 times a week. If my mind is racing and I struggle to stay asleep, it's usually a sign that I'm not taking enough downtime.
Learning - I always have at least a couple of books on the go. I'm generally reading a book every two weeks. At night I have a fiction book that I read before falling asleep. Throughout the day I listen to podcasts when I'm cooking, cleaning, walking the dog or doing laundry. By nature, I'm super curious, so this area is not somewhere I have to put much thought. It's more being intentional about taking time away from consumption so I can let everything sink in.
Fun - Most of my "fun" centred on drinking with friends. It's meant re-imagining what I can do that's fun without drinking being the focus. I have a couple of buddies I go see movies with or I'll meet up with friends for coffee. I still love going to concerts, hanging out with Lindsey or playing with my niece. I still don't feel like I have enough fun, so I'm hoping to bring more of this into my life – if for nothing more than the reminder that it's important not to take life so fucking seriously.
3 - Are you doing what's *urgent* (answering e-mails, texts, the phone, running errands, etc.) or what's important?
I rarely do what's urgent anymore. I prioritize what's important in my life and schedule those before anything else. I have a max of 1-3 things I work on each day. I only focus on what gives me a huge return. I'll chunk phone calls, appointments, running errands, etc. to do on the same day. As I work best by immersing myself for 2-3 hours at a time, this lets me dedicate entire days to deep work with a central focus.
Designing your life with the five most important things as the foundation is like a Redbull for fulfillment.
You don't have to quit your job, move to Bali, or make a hundred grand to reap the rewards. All you have to do is to reconnect with the creative kid inside you and get back to simplicity.
I'll let you in on a little secret. Wherever your focus goes, grows. It's a law of nature.
What are the five most important things in your life? Share it in the comments below!
Life is constantly throwing things at us, and you can either yin or you can yang. One way to deal with circumstances that seem uncomfortable or annoying is to simply shift your perspective.
