Prioritizing my life: goals and priorities are needed to succeed

This is the first article of ‘21 and that’s what makes the subject of this week’s article that more relevant. I know that it’s almost a cliché that people set resolutions for the New Year that they either don’t stick to or only stick to for a few weeks. In this article I want to explore why and how you can go about setting the sort of resolutions that you can actually stick to. And we will do this by looking at the most common New Year resolutions; those about diet and drinking habits.

First off: let’s not even assume that these habits are massive, and the little nudge that there’s always a social element involved where it becomes very hard to stick to a diet or non-drinking. The essential question that you have to ask yourself is: why would I want to change my diet and drinking habit?

And there is more going on here than you might initially think: health is its own moral instrument. No one in their right mind will deny that being healthy is better than being unhealthy. 

That makes being healthy and sticking to a diet not just good, but also the right thing to do. This is also where it creates the sort of moral imperative where it’s expected of us to change those habits. In fact, it should make it much easier to change those habits…. Why then is it so hard to stick to healthier ones? 

Okay, so this is not my choice?

This all means that it’s not even the question as to why you should stick to a healthy diet, because a lot of what roots for it is already lined up as it is. To make it work you would need to dig deeper to see if you can figure out how deep this root actually runs. 

If you have read any other of my articles, then you know that I’m a firm believer in this principle: look good, feel good, do good. I like this one, because this is where the health element is no longer limited to physical well-being. This is where it extends to include such things as our personal and professional lives.

Of course to look good doesn’t just have to do with diet, because it involves much more than just that. It has to do with lowering the amount of stress in your life, it has to do with getting enough rest and exercise, and it has to do with building the kind of life that you genuinely feel good about. 

That’s a lot to take into account, and it’s a lot to turn around if you haven’t got everything going for yourself right now. Here’s the deal though: to change all of that, you have to start somewhere and then branch out. 

When you have stuck to a diet for four weeks, expand to include exercise, or if you’re already exercising: step it up a notch. Meanwhile, read far and wide, read this site, read Gaze wide, aim far, read all over, read The Bird Man, watch YouTube and try to get a handle on what it means for you to build a better life. That’s when you start to apply the same line of thinking to the larger aspects of your life. 

Start with the end in mind

What you end up with is most likely not something that you had never considered: most of the time you already have a good understanding what you want out of life, but it’s just a matter of taking the right steps to get where you want to be. This in itself will be as much what you will get out of reading far and wide.

There is one thing that I can’t stress enough though: when you undertake anything, it will save you a lot of time and trouble if you start with the end in mind. This will give you direction and something to aim for, with chances being less likely of you getting side-tracked or running out of steam. 

This is where another essential element comes rolling in: you will have to mentally prepare yourself that things will probably take some time. During that time it may seem that you’re going after the wrong thing, at least that’s what folks around you might say. Your spouse might start nagging, your kids might be getting difficult, and there will be times when you yourself will be the only person that believes in what you’re after.

In the beginning it will all take a lot of time, you will struggle, you will not get things right the first time. That’s all to be expected, and it’s all part of the process: highly successful individuals all started somewhere and failed many times before they made it big. The playing field might be a little skewed for some individuals, with family money and a family business to move into, but other than that: the field is the same for everyone. 

The hard part is to see an opportunity for what it’s worth. When you plan to move into a certain career or when you have certain investments in mind, you will have to take your personal talents, interests, capabilities, character and all that into account. 

Don’t start big, start small

But hé, it’s just the beginning of the year, and there’s no need to rush into anything. There’s still the pandemic to consider, and that will give you some valuable time. The question is valid still though: why change your diet and drinking habit?

One last remark though, because this question kind of implies that you need an answer before changing your diet. That’s hardly the case, and that’s where you can compare this to other life changes. The answer to questions like these is fluid: you will find an answer over time, but its scope, heft and all that will shift. And that’s just how life works: we can talk about it, but when it comes down to it, it can hardly be summed up in so many words.

If your dream is to become a market gardener and you keep telling yourself that you will get started once you have saved enough cash to buy a piece of land, then you’re making excuses not to get started. Life rarely works like this: you don’t need to do this-and-that in order to do so-and-so. Instead: you can start doing this-and-that while doing so-and-so.

When you have the prior way of thinking, you will end up not doing anything. And that’s sad, because if you look back five years from now, you will say: if only…. 

Don’t be that person. Start today, whether it’s getting healthy, getting back in shape, or starting that new career. 

Key points

- most people make resolutions about diet after the New Year, and most people fail.

- the way not to fail is by digging deeper, and figuring out why you would want to change your diet.

- one way to succeed in a diet and anything else, is by starting with the end in mind.

- expect struggle and failure, and in the end: success.

- just get started, don’t wait for this-and-that.

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