We are living through a time of change: almost every day brings with it new stories of dramatic events.
But most of this ‘news’ will not affect us directly. By this time next week we will have forgotten what happened today and moved on to another batch of supposedly urgent “Breaking News”.
It might seem urgent but most of it is not important. Can you remember what the headlines were four weeks ago? Four days ago?
Riding this roller coaster of ups and downs might seem exciting. But if we’re not careful, our life can become a giant game of snakes and ladders: pushing us up a ‘ladder’ one minute and down a ‘snake’ the next. This drains our energy. And it distracts us from what matters most to us.
When everything is a priority, nothing is.
So if we want to change this pattern, our first step has to be to get clearer on what matters most to us. This means getting clear on our long-term priorities: our purpose and especially our values.
You can read elsewhere about how to find your values. But once we know them there are three ways that we can use them to address any short-term issues:
- First, whenever a new issue or news story arises we can ask ourselves, “Is this relevant to my values?” If it isn’t then it’s a distraction, we can ignore it: it’s someone else’s fight.
This saves us wasted time and it jumps us over the snakes.
. - Then if we decide that an issue is relevant to our values, knowing those values will help us to define more quickly the outcome(s) we want instead: it shows us where the top of the ladder we want to climb is.
. - And the more clearly we know our values, and the more we live in line with them, the more energy and inspiration we will have to climb to the tops of our chosen ladders, faster.
We are living through a time of change. The distractions around us aren’t going to go away any time soon. In fact they’re going to get worse. But what we can change is the way that we respond to those distractions.
By knowing our values, and living in line with them, we can avoid the snakes, focus where we place our ladders, and climb to the tops of those ladders faster. This will keep us focused and it will make us feel alive.
Do you know your values? How much of your time do you spend applying them in your life? What proportion of your days do you spend focused on what matters most to you?
Adapted from Inner Leadership: a framework and tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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Photo By Leonard J Matthews via StockPholio.net