Tag: priorities

Re-Prioritization

It all started with a question in a job interview.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

I froze in my chair at the conference room table, unsure how to respond.

I didn’t have the luxury of thinking five years down the road. I’d recently gotten laid off, less than a year into my marketing career. I was still new in town and devoid of a support network.

I needed this job, now. I needed the income to pay the bills. And I needed the legitimacy of a stable assignment to prove my professional worth.

So, I came up with a boilerplate answer. And I ultimately landed the job.

I was set, but far from settled.

For even as I sat in my cubicle – with a full list of clients to support and a steady salary – I thought about the question from the interview.

I was still in my mid-twenties, but I’d bounced around a bit already. And I’d seen the costs of such transience.

I needed a five-year plan badly.

So, I gave my future some thought. I put a plan together. And I strove to make it a reality.

My journey to better started quietly.

I was doing well enough in my job, but I knew more mastery was on the horizon. So, I earned some Digital Marketing certifications, proudly displaying the badges in my cubicle and on my social media profiles.

Still, I knew that a certification badge could only get me so far. I resolved to think bigger.

So, I took the GMAT and applied to business schools. Then I enrolled in a Masters’ of Business Administration (MBA) program that held classes in the evenings. This allowed me to obtain full marketing training in the classroom and earn a prestigious degree – all without requiring me to quit my job.

I earned my MBA roughly five years after I had hashed out my five-year plan. Now, there was just one more step to fully attain it.

I started looking at other jobs, hoping to land a prestigious role with a prominent company. My post-MBA job, as it were.

I set a hard deadline for myself. By the time the new year arrived, I’d be in a new place professionally. Since the upcoming year was 2020, I dubbed this plan 2.0 in 2020.

But despite my best efforts, I didn’t land that job by the dawn of the new decade. And a few months after New Year’s Day, a global pandemic turned the world upside down.

My five-year plan was now in limbo. I hung on to my existing job for dear life. And my grip tightened further after my employer was acquired by a larger company – leading to job redundancy fears.

Everything I had hoped for was hopelessly off-course.

What on earth was I going to do?

Plans be damned. Seize opportunities.

That’s what I told myself as 2020 faded into the rearview.

The most restrictive portion of the pandemic had passed. My job had not been made redundant. And the holding pattern hanging over my life had started to lift.

So, I jumped on an opportunity to move over to my new employer’s corporate marketing team. I dove headfirst into the new role – making connections, drafting materials, and traveling coast to coast to evangelize the business segment I was now supporting.

Off the clock, I seized the opportunity to exercise more frequently. I joined running clubs, entered in races of longer and longer distances, and started taking home hardware from them.

None of this had been in my prior plans. All of it seemed like a happy accident.

But I wasn’t complaining about the result. I was just hoping the good times would continue.

They didn’t.

Economic headwinds led my employer to reorganize itself several times, with the shifts changing the nature of my role. Meanwhile, a series of injuries stopped my running exploits in their tracks.

Once again, I was trapped. The five-year plan had already stalled out. And now, the Carpe Diem approach had also run aground.

What on earth was I going to do?

What are you chasing?

This question was at the heart of the inquiry into my five-year plan, whether the job interviewer knew it or not.

And even after drafting that plan, I struggled to adequately address the core premise.

I found myself oscillating between prestige and stability over the intervening years, striving for one and falling back on the other when the rug inevitably got yanked from below my feet.

This process left some scars. But as those scars accumulated, my determination only deepened.

I would get this right. I would uncover the answer.

But recently, something has changed. I’ve started to wonder whether I’ve been asking the right question.

You see, I’ve been blessed with a great support network throughout. Family, friends, and peers have been there for me on every step of my winding odyssey through life.

But I’m not so sure the inverse has been true.

Sure, I’ve supported my supporters through the years. But only to a point.

For as I worked on my five-year plan – and the carpe diem era that replaced it – I mostly lost track of what was going on with my friends and family. Sometimes, I lost touch with them entirely for months on end.

It was easy to overlook this development. After all, with every twist and turn in my journey, I grew my social circle.

There were new people to connect with and new sources of support to rely on. So, I missed the obvious signs that things had gone awry with the others in my orbit.

But my eyes are wide open now.

I realize how much what I missed matters, and how little what I was chasing really meant.

Sure, it’s nice to have objectives, and the trappings of a profession can help maintain a lifestyle.

But the connections with our community are the ties that bind. Being there for those who support us — in the good times and the tough ones — is nothing short of essential. It can sustain us — enriching our experience on this rock and enhancing our legacy after we leave it.

So, consider this my re-prioritization.

I might continue to demand more of myself professionally and recreationally. But I will no longer act as this venture is Item 1A, or even 1B.

Where I’ll be in five years is hardly the point. Who will be in my orbit means far more.

Chasing Time

Age ain’t nothin’ but a number.

I’ve said this dozens of times before, because I know it to be true.

Sure, there are some physiological changes that go on at certain points in our life, and there are certain items we can only buy if we’re of a certain age. But all too often, the number of years we’ve been on the planet has less to do with our place in this world than we think.

Of course, we collectively bungle this truth all too often. That’s why we splurge on the bright orange sports car in response to our “mid-life crisis.” And it’s why we throw ourselves lavish parties for a milestone birthday.

There’s an expectation that the number we’re associated with should impact the way we live our lives. It’s the expectation that leads us to think “Now that I’m 55, I need to become a different person,” and then either accept or rebel against that statement.

This is understandable. After all, our society emphasizes the importance of age on a foundational level. It’s one of the reasons we go to school with kids our age. It’s one of the reasons why we must wait until we’re old enough to be able to vote, drink or rent a car. It’s one of the reasons why amazed by the 24-year-old in upper management, yet look with scorn at the 22-year-old with two kids.

In short, we act as if our society is a meritocracy, with age as its currency. This is why we expend so much effort chasing time — celebrating the passing of the years while letting that occurrence impact our behavior.

If only we could open our eyes.

For the truth is, it’s not how long we live that matters. It’s how we live that does.

How responsible we are. How we treat others. How we carry ourselves. We have an obligation to keep these consistent — and consistently positive.

This obligation remains with us, whether we’re 8 or 80. And our adherence to it can help determine our legacy long after we pass on.

I’ve taken this mantra to heart for several years. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t care much about my birthday (aside from showing gratitude to well-wishers), and why I refuse to let my age dictate my destiny. It’s one of the reasons why I evaluate those around me by their thoughts and actions, rather than their age. And it’s one of the reasons why I always try and act righteously and responsibly.

This is a much more productive and open-minded way to make it through life than worrying about how long we’ve been on the planet. And a productive, open-minded approach is much needed in a time when our society seems more distrustful and divided than ever.

Let’s break down one of these worthless barriers omnipresent in our society. Let’s stop chasing time and start focusing on life.

Taking Stock

Why do we spread our focus so thin?

It’s a question we don’t often ponder. But maybe we should.

I know that personally, I’ve overloaded myself on insignificant items of interest in recent years. I’ve been determined to catch every episode of every TV show I liked, watch every game my favorite teams play, read every article my favorite Internet marketing publications ever put on the web.

It hasn’t been FOMO driving this pattern — I’ve made my feelings clear on that — but rather, an all or nothing mentality. In essence, I’ve given myself an ultimatum: “Either I will take in all I can consume of a subject, or I will take in none of it.”

All too often, I’ve taken the first option.

Now this was all well and good at first — this immersion demonstrated a consistent dedication to the subjects I cared about, one that would lead to benefits in either my career or well-being (yes, I know I bashed leisure time once, but it can still have therapeutic benefits).

But over time, this dedication has become a burden. There are only so many hours in a week, and I’ve found myself planning mine around factors out of my control, such as the schedule of a pro sports team or the article count of an online publisher.

The more I talk about this, the more ridiculous it sounds. But much like a train, it’s hard to stop this pattern once it gets rolling.

Or at least it has been until recently.

***

For various reasons, I’ve shaken things up in recent months. Although I’m generally averse to change, I’ve swallowed my pride and sacrificed some of my carefully crafted weekly routine in order to better myself professionally.

With these changes in motion, I’ve found myself with far less free time than I once did. As a result, I’ve been spending less time watching sports, keeping track of every show or reading material that may or may not be interesting.

But it goes much further than that. I’ve focused precious little time on fantasy football, and I’ve been wasting less energy on pointless exchanges with friends through text messages or social media.

I’ve given up a lot of things I once enjoyed. And you know what? It feels liberating.

You see, I’ve taken stock of my life. The time squeeze I’ve found myself in has forced me to subconsciously evaluate what truly matters to me.

And what does truly matter to me? Only a finite list of things: maintaining my relationships with those closest to me, writing articles like this one, cooking good food, exercising, spending quiet moments outdoors, advancing my career — and yes, occasionally watching football on fall weekends.

Renewing my focus in these pursuits, and these pursuits alone, is liberating. I have control over my destiny — not the calendar or some TV programming executive somewhere. And whatever I choose to devote myself to in a specific moment receives my full dedication, attention and passion. It’s a win-win.

***

This model represents how it should be, but seldom how it is.

Whether it’s our own competitiveness, FOMO or a drive to lay claim to watercooler conversation, we find reasons to worry about too many things that are far too insignificant in the long run (fantasy football, anyone?).

We’re doing no one any favors with this behavior, yet we persist.

But we have what it takes to break the chain, to stop ourselves paper-thin. So let’s take stock of our lives, figure out what’s truly important, and then double down on that.

Our destiny is in our hands. It’s time to grasp it.

Meeting Our Needs

We all have our priorities.

If we’ve heard this line before, it most likely came gift-wrapped in a derisive tone. We can be quite the judgmental lot as a society, and when someone’s set of priorities dares to defy our expectations, we all too often find ourselves scoffing in indignation.

But what are the right priorities to set? What are the expectations that should be met?

These questions will often bring an uncomfortable silence among the self-annointed peanut gallery. After all, it’s easier to point a finger at what’s considered wrong by society than to articulate what’s considered right.

Truth is, there is a road map to these questions. It’s called Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Without digging too deeply into this theory (since I ain’t got a couch for you to lie on and tell me your feelings), it outlines a pyramid of needs, starting with the most basic and foundational and reaching its peak at self-actualization.

I remember vividly the day I discovered the truth behind this theory. I had just landed in Chile for a college study abroad program, and was in a private van heading with my classmates from the international airport in Santiago to Viña del Mar — the city we’d call home for the next two months or so.

Shortly after we got on the highway, the orange juice I’d downed on the plane caught up with me. After about 10 minutes of trying to soldier on, I asked the driver to pull over. He obliged at a scenic overlook, one that was conspicuously missing the type of thick roadside shrubbery those who make these types of pit stops hope to find. I ultimately had to climb a hill and wind around some barren desert plants to find a place where I could be comfortable relieving myself.

As I stood there, looking out across the Andes Mountains, I knew exactly where my priorities were. I was alone on a continent where I didn’t know a soul, en route to living quarters I knew little of. If there was a moment in my life where I was most out of my element, this would be it. But even at this moment, when nature called, I took great liberties to make sure my core needs were met. I even made sure my senses of safety, belonging and self-esteem (the middle sections of the Hierarchy of Needs pyramid) were met by making the extra effort to find a spot shielded from view to…you know.

As I returned to the van, I felt at peace. The unknown still awaited me, but the most basic level of normalcy had taken hold.

So what can we all learn from this, besides the fact that the terrain of Chile is quite rugged? Quite simply, our quibbling over our priorities in life is trivial. How we spend our time and who we spend it with is important, but the attention we give it is as overblown as the headlines in the gossip magazines in grocery store checkout aisles.

Are we fed? Are we clothed? Are we safe? Are we happy? These are the needs we must meet, the priorities we must set. For without these, we can’t function properly, let alone soar to our potential.

So the next time someone makes mention of your priorities, think of these basic needs — for both yourself and your loved ones. If these needs are met, and morality is ingrained in your actions, you’ll be off to a good start — no matter what the peanut gallery says.