We are living through a time of change: every day brings new stories of dramatic events.
Social media amplify these stories, seeking our engagement. But most of the stories do not affect us directly. And 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 becomes 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 distracts us from what matters most to us.
Because,
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. And in a world where so much is changing so fast, this means getting clear on our long-term priorities. These are our purpose and especially our values. (After all, our purpose is simply a way to bring our values to life.)
Once we know our values there are then three ways that we can put them to use to address short-term issues better:
- First, whenever a new issue or a news story arises we can ask ourselves, “Is this relevant to my values?” If it isn’t then we can ignore it: it’s a distraction, it’s someone else’s fight.
This saves us wasted time. It jumps us over the snakes.
. - If we decide that an issue is relevant to our values, then knowing those values helps us to define more quickly the outcome(s) we want to create 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) then the more energy and inspiration we will then have to climb to the tops of our ladders, faster.
We are living through a time of change. The distractions around us aren’t going away any time soon. In fact they’re going to get worse. But we can change the way we respond to these 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 keeps us focused and it makes us feel alive.
Do you know your values? How much of your time do you spend applying them in your life? How much of your time do you spend being distracted from 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