Running late, too much month at the end of the money, to-do list growing and an unwanted personal commitment you feel obliged to attend?
Do these sound-like familiar problems to you? As humans, we have all at one stage or another been faced with these challenges during our lives. Unfortunately for most, society has made this not just reality but more concerning, a normality. For many, these thoughts and feelings can escalate into a crippling and rather debilitating outlook on life. The formula to resolve your worries, Perspective + Priorities = Freedom (PPF).
Perspective is without doubt one of the most powerful things we possess. Having the ability to see a situation not only as it is and not worse than it is but also as an opportunity for things to seem better than they could be provides a sense of liberty that can truly set you free. It is of paramount importance to be able to take a step back, step out of your reality, remove emotion and see something for what it is, not what you have made it to be. For life is what we make it.
The ability to effectively prioritise not only allows you to have more time, it allows you to have more time to do the things you (really) want to and to share with the people that really matter. Often, at the root of our lack of priorities lies the inability to effectively say no to people and do the exact things that do not serve us. This single incapability alone can create problems in abundance which would otherwise not exist. The FOSN (Fear of Saying No) cripples people’s productivity, time management, happiness, mindset and life more they ever think possible. Were you to re-frame priorities as importance, if this was your last day, would you do the things you feel compelled to do or would you prioritise the things that really matter and stop caring about what you ‘think’ is the right thing to do to impress the people you do not really like.
Finally, freedom… the thing we all want but many never achieve. Perspective and priorities fit perfectly into freedom as what one may perceive as freedom will differ as will the priorities required to attain freedom. Is freedom therefore a choice? Would a better outlook on life (perspective) coupled with a greater focus on what really is important (priorities) lead you to a sense of freedom? I certainly feel as though it just might. Besides what is the worst that can happen… many are already stuck feeling as if the world is against them, everything is going wrong and they don’t have hours in the day. Maybe, just maybe the PPF strategy will set us free.
Perspective… the more you escape reality, the worse your reality becomes. Maybe it is time to make a decision and instead of being alive, start living.