How To Prioritize Your Goals: Focus On Things That Matter

We’re all well aware that prioritising things in life is beneficial, right!? But a closer look at people’s thoughts and behaviours, and you will realize that most people have no clue on how to identify their priorities. They seem to lump both of their needs and wishes together. The former is not negotiable, the latter is. As they say, most people just can’t seem to set their priorities straight. And in the process, they end up putting themselves in a bad or even worse position. Maybe you have that problem too. blueprint’s strategic goal-setting framework’s priority assignment criterion lets you mark your ambitions with clear priority levels and is designed to address this specific challenge. But again, why are most people bad at this? In order to get a proper grasp of the theme of this article, let’s just briefly go over that.

Why is it hard for most people to prioritize things?

Well, there are a couple of reasons as to why this is i.e. difficulty for most people to prioritize things. First, they have no clue on how to differentiate between their ‘needs’ and ‘wants’. A need is something of great value and mandatory, while a want is basically a desire i.e. a wish with some value but is still optional. Of course, one can be both i.e. a need and a wish, but that’s a different subject. Secondly, most people have weak judgement, making them unable to differentiate between high and low impact goals. Have you ever noticed how people waste money on expensive goods and pricey restaurants, but the moment they need to invest in themselves like getting a new skill or an education, they start to complain about money problems!? Yup, I do not think I need to elaborate this any further, do I? Finally, most people just do not like doing the difficult work and sadly, most things that matter in life are usually hard. They would rather opt out with the easy thing as they trade progress for comfort.

What are the benefits of prioritizing your goals?

Before we move on to the actual theme of this article, let’s just briefly go over another important discussion, which is, ‘why prioritizing goals (and things in general) is beneficial?’. I know, it is quite obvious but, for the sake of getting a better understanding of the topic, let’s just go over them anyway. This way we’re all on the same page later on.

Reduces opportunity cost

For those of you who don’t know what opportunity cost means, it is basically “I could have done something similar or better to this thing I am doing right now.” When we don’t prioritize, our opportunity cost skyrockets. Whenever we get occupied with some menial task, we could instead be doing something much impactful that would really make a dent on our lives. Instead of learning how to ride a bicycle, you could learn how to drive. That’s just one simple example. And I don’t mean to say that small things do not matter but they really don’t if you have big things piling up.

Optimizes effort, time and resources

Obviously, correct? It helps us optimize how we invest our effort, time and resources. We do not have these in unlimited supply, so we need to be smart on how to spend them. Plus nothing feels worse than realizing you poured everything you had into something and yet, achieved so little. But when we do allocate and utilize them for things that really matter, we can really expect to exponent our growth and progress, and get the best experience out of life.

Ensure continued focus and attention

Important stuff in life demands a certain level of seriousness. This forces you to be focused and aware. You can’t afford to divert your attention to menial things because you will always be preoccupied with the things that matter. What’s more impressive is that, after a certain period, you won’t even consider small things as laborious work but rather simple-easy errands. Hence, training yourself to prioritize goals will inevitably narrow down, prolong and intensify your focus and attention.

Prevents procrastination

When everything gets grouped together, things become blurry. This leads to doubt, confusion and ultimately procrastination. When your important priorities are mixed with your basic stuff, you neither feel the urgency nor the seriousness for action and progress. Instead of action, you just get preoccupied with unnecessary mental stress on what to do first. But assign priority to each one and you’ll feel yourself become more aware of your priorities. The mere action of labelling one goal as more important than the other, is enough to stimulate action and reinforce your responsibility.

Provides clarity and direction

Assigning priority to your goals is essentially just creating clarity in your objective and following the correct direction. When you prioritise one thing over the other, you know which target is more impactful in your life and in doing so, you will desperately try to figure out which correct direction (actions) takes you there. When you lump all of your priorities together, you just become indecisive as you get overwhelmed about what you want to achieve the most. In short, you get lost just deciding the next important step.

Pace up growth and productivity

Another obvious point right!? Just focus on your top priorities first, since they are more meaningful and impactful, and then you will be more action-oriented and progress at a faster pace.

Keeps you in-tuned with long-term ambitions

Things of meaning and value in life are always long term based. But things that are brief and easy only have momentary value i.e. they satisfy your needs just for the now. Prioritizing tasks and goals will help you evaluate and compare the value of each one. Keep your eye focused on the important stuff and you will always align yourself with long-term success and growth.

How to master the skill of prioritizing goals so that we can focus on the important stuff?

Finally, we have reached the heart of the article. Let’s get on with the crux, which is, “How do we prioritize our goals?” and more importantly, “how to do it properly?” Yes, it is not just about ranking which goal or task is more important than the other, it’s also about, are you assessing and evaluating their value and importance correcting or not? The following guidelines will teach you how to prioritize goals in a manner that ensure we always focus on the things that matter and avoid distractions:

Calculate the ROI i.e. Return on Investment

ROI is a popular financial term. Basically, you need to evaluate the value something provides with respect to how much you put into it. This can be money, time, energy, emotion, effort etc. In plain terms, you are just asking “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”  

The key to accurately judging if one thing is more important than the other, is to calculate the ROI. Simple, right? Well, there is one catch that often gets ignored, which is, you also need to compare the ROI. A big ambition does not necessarily mean it has a higher ROI than a normal or small ambition. Sometimes the smaller things are what give you better and faster results. I know, I know. I have been hyping up the big stuff till now, but it is because they usually have life-changing impacts. However, if a smaller goal has a much faster and greater ROI, then it should overtake your big ambitions, as the top priority. You get immediate benefits, a confidence boost and also expand and replenish your motivation bucket to tackle the next big thing.

Let me end this with an example: Learning a martial art is much harder and takes more time and effort than playing a sport or exercising right? But the ROI of the latter is immediate and greater compared to the former. Again, this does not mean you give up on the hard and important stuff. You can always start learning a martial art after you pick up a sport or do regular exercise for a month or two.

Assess and ensure contextual alignment

Contextual alignment simply means that a task or a goal is compatible with the current context i.e. your situation. In such conditions, you need to shift and rearrange your priorities. Context plays a crucial role in the execution and success of an action. You learn to swim in the summer and hike in the winter, not the other way around. I know, it's a broad example but you get what I am trying to say. If you try to force a goal or an action in an incompatible environment, most likely you will fail, and even if you don’t, you’ll likely have a difficult experience.

I know motivational couches and lifestyle gurus have you believe that there is no such thing as the right time. But there is, at least, an ideal time. There’s a reason why they say, “Strike while the iron is hot.” I do not mean to say sit idle until everything seems good. But if you are presented with an opportunity, re-arrange your priorities and take action without a second thought.

Prioritizing one thing over the other demands contextual alignment so that things go smoothly and end up successful. If you can’t ensure that, it will likely force you to invest unnecessary effort and resources, and it might not even promise success. So, you need to look out for contextual alignment while setting your priorities. This does require you to be a bit flexible, which brings us to our next point.

Foster flexibility to ensure practicality

Being flexible with your priorities is extremely crucial if we want things to go well. But what do I mean by being flexible? Well remember our previous point about contextual alignment, how we need to shift and re-arrange our prioritises based on the context? Context simply is not limited to the environment and time but also your capabilities and long term vision. Hence, being flexible is very important. You might need to do a lot of re-shuffling based on the changing situation, your own capabilities, the priority’s alignment with the bigger picture and so on. This ensures your priorities are always grounded in practicality and real world compatibility. Rest assured! I do not mean you need to abandon them. But being flexible requires you to delay your priorities or change their rank on your ‘important stuff' scale. If ‘get a degree’ is your top priority followed by lesser priority of ‘get a skill related to your profession or trade’ but you found out that all the university courses are too expensive or the in-take deadline has passed, then you need to switch positions between the two priorities. You can’t delay the latter just because the situation is not ideal for the former.

Keeping things structured is necessary

This is an obvious one, right? In order to properly prioritize goals, you need a clear structure on how to identify and differentiate things. Labels and categories are perfect for this. Labels can be something like Urgent, High, Medium, Low and Optional and Categories like Education, Health, Career, and so on.

Proper structure ensures clarity in your movement. This also allows you to arrange, sort and keep things in order. Two different goals could be of the same importance with the same ROI but driven by different reasons. Above all, this can also assist us in our contextual alignment evaluation, since categories do represent certain scenarios or environments.

Let me elaborate with an example: A “Get a skill” could be labelled as High priority in the Career category while a “Complete an online course” could be medium priority in the Education category. Different goals with different importance and suitable for different contexts. Things are neatly isolated and classified so that you know which is more significant based on the context.

Separate the “Want” from the “Need”

Like I mentioned above, often people’s ‘Wants’ hijack their ‘Needs’. Ever noticed how some people, on their way to an important task, get distracted by their menial desires? This ends up creating unnecessary challenges, delaying or even sabotaging their success. Maybe you have that problem too. It is crucial that you are capable enough to identify this pattern. Our goals can either be our ‘need’ or our ‘want’, and sometimes even both (which are called ambitions). You need to be capable enough to create a clear division between the two. Once you do that, things will get sorted and you can focus on only those that matter the most.

For the sake of consistency, let’s wrap this up with an example: You’re on your way to an important job interview but your eyes were distracted by that sale you were so excited for since last year. If you do give into your temptation and get side-tracked by the sale, you create the risk of being late or forgetting interview questions or getting burdened with unnecessary things. However, if you remind yourself that the interview is your ‘need’ and shun the thought of the sale, the interview becomes your top priority. Again, you do not necessarily have to forsake your desires, you just need to delay it. In this case, that would be to visit the sale once the interview is over.

Block the Noise from the Sound

I know, this point feels a bit redundant. What’s the difference between this and all that other thing I was talking about, like big vs small or want vs need? Well, unlike in those cases, here noise means something unnecessary i.e. you discard it. A noise is simply a ‘Want’ with no real value because it provides no immediate and you end up abandoning it either way. People waste so much of their time, effort, energy, resources, etc. chasing things they don’t even want or need in the first place. Your priorities can be small or big. Either way, both have some sort of value. But a noise is simply a thing that provides you no value whatsoever. Instead, they drain you in all aspects, creating a big red in your life’s balance sheet.

Again, let me end this with a popular example: The craze (or trend) of people learning a new language. What!? Learning a skill is a noise? Yes! If it does not have any purpose in the future. I like to call this the “Duolingo Fever”. If you are learning a language purely for the sake of learning a new language, you’ve just wasted your valuable resources, which you could have utilized in things that could actually provide you real benefit. Learning a new language is only good, if you are planning to either visit the country, take some translation job or something similar that involves you actually utilizing the skill. Here’s another one: Reading too many books. What!? Accumulating knowledge is not useful!? It is, but only if you are planning to utilize the knowledge somewhere or for something. But most people become readers because they get swept by a trend. Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing but it is not a smart utilization of your time and resources. Plus, the human brain can only retain so much knowledge for so long. It quickly discards unutilized knowledge as garbage, so in the end, it won’t even stick. Instead, a much better use of your time and resources would be to learn how to drive or cook, both of which have immediate real world value, since you will and can use it frequently.

The need to prioritize our goals and ambitions is critical if we want to achieve growth and progress at a faster pace with greater results and better success. Failing to do so, will inevitably cause us to wander and get paralyzed despite our skills, capability and competence. If we get lost in the menial things, we will never encounter life changing experiences or get serious about our success. Learning how to get your priorities straight can and will help you ease the load of your ambitions as you drop the burden of the smaller things and give spare yourself extra strength to bear the toll of the bigger things. Just remember to follow the guidance you got from this article, integrate it in your daily life and with enough practice you will soon learn to filter out life’s errands from your long-term ambitions and plans.

FAQs – Additional Information & Queries

I feel my ‘want’ is just as important as my ‘need’. Otherwise, I do not feel motivated. Is that good?

There’s nothing wrong with feeling that. After all, we human beings are driven by our desire. One thing I recommend is to prioritize things that fall under both ‘want‘ and ‘need’ i.e. your ambitions. Then, maybe prioritize those ‘wants’ which provide you immediate and adequate value, and finally your ‘need’. Of course, I still recommend you to do it in reverse if you can.

Are smaller goals always of less priority? Aren’t small things what really bring change?

No! I mean that for both. Based on the ROI, I can even be of greater priority than your long-term big ambitions because you can complete them easily and quickly while enjoying immediate benefit. But usually, your bigger ambitions are indeed of greater priority. Now, small things can bring great change but not as much as the big ones. Like I mentioned, ‘getting a skill’ may have greater ROI than ‘getting a degree’ but the latter has a huge long term impact. Again, it doesn’t mean the former is not important.

What to do when you need to work even when contextual alignment is not ideal?

There are some very important things that you can’t wait for the right time, right? My recommendation is that you acknowledge it could get difficult and try to do the best you can. At that point, ROI becomes irrelevant because of the seriousness of the goal and its impact on your life.