Back to Basics:

Step 3 Priorities

How did this part of the process get such a bad rap?

Do you set an alarm everyday? Most of us do. If you are a 9-to-5er then most likely you get up early for work. If you’re an entrepreneur you probably have the good habits of exercising, reading, or meditating early in the day among other tasks.

If you have a family and you pick your kids up from soccer practice, you’ve definitely scheduled that as a priority in your day. Otherwise, your spouse, kid, and your child’s soccer coach may not be too happy you didn’t make that of the highest priority in your day.

So, when people hear the word priority especially when it comes to activities outside of ‘work’ or ‘school’ why do they start to panic, or consider it optional? This is often the unfortunate case for people when they’ve decided to start a business. They may have even written out a plan, an effective one, that has all the elements necessary to finally begin working for oneself instead of prioritizing their time to a job they are good at — but have more than likely grown to disdain.

PRIORITY — (noun)

A simple definition states: a thing being regarded or treated as more important than another; something given special attention.

The problem with entrepreneurship isn’t prioritizing. The problem with people trying their hand at entrepreneurship is fear.

Give yourself the opportunity to prioritize a business plan, website, content calendar, and a day each week to work on your product or service to give value to the world.

People who aren’t living the life they want to are afraid to prioritize something in their life as important that doesn’t give them immediate results, instant gratification or for the most part, a guaranteed paycheck at the end of each week.

Nonetheless, fear of the unknown or intangible keeps people from truly accomplishing their dreams. When all most large tasks can be accomplished easily by taking baby steps. Start with a plan and prioritize your most immediate actions.

This is why crash dieting is still an ongoing trend when taking the time to plan and prioritize how to best lose weight is still the viable option that seems to work best for most. Simply rearranging their schedule a little bit to include a couple of actions, which if consistently built up over time may change their lives completely.

Of course, change is scary too — but not as scary as how comfortable I am when I’m doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Naps? Third favorite past-time hands-down. Don’t get me wrong, I’m generally an active person. I took dance for 8 years, I prioritize getting my 10,000 steps in every day. I love playing softball and cycling and being outside, but I also really love to nap.

So, do I try and do everything else in my life at the same time? Pretty impossible. Or do I prioritize my day to include both my love of some physical activity AND my love of curling up under my weighted blanket for a quick 20 min refresher? Of course! I can do it all because I laid out my priorities.

Same thing with running my own business. I planned my goals for the day: three is a solid number. I have my weekly, monthly, and year long goals all in one place. To make sure I don’t get overwhelmed — I have them broken down into daily tasks I can do to build myself into the person I want to be in my business a year from now.

After I’ve planned, I prioritize. I’d like to keep my body healthy, so I get my 10k in a day. I’d like to build my community and professional network by sending 10 personalized emails a week to people to start the conversation. I prioritize my day to include any acting gigs, or any odd jobs I take to support my income (while establishing more passive streams to replace these gigs). I prioritize talking to my mom weekly, and at least an hour of our conversation is just dedicated to her recipes and how we can memorialize them.

The point is simple — Priorities aren’t chores. They aren’t supposed to be things you do that if you don’t you’ll get into trouble. Priorities are the little methodologies you have going on simultaneously to accomplish the goals you set for yourself.

After your plan, it can be overwhelming just to take the first step. The remedy? Prioritize which will be the first three steps you need to take to get things started. Steps with the highest PRIORITY. And, do them.