Many people say that their health is important to them, but very few actually act in accordance with that statement. Part of my goal as a personal trainer is, to get people who say (or know) their health is important, to actually ACT like their health is important by making better lifestyle choices. So when a friend and I began talking about priorities the other day and we came to the conclusion that most people don’t understand what their priorities are, I knew I had to write about it.
Let’s do a short exercise to see what I mean. On a piece of paper, number from 1-5 and rank your current top five priorities. Don’t spend more than two minutes on this. You can write down things like family, friends, relationships, work, health, projects, goals or anything else you feel is a priority in your life.
When you’re done look at your list and ask yourself, is this really what my priorities are?
For some reason it’s very easy to lie to yourself about where your priorities stand. You tend to actually write down what you want your priorities to be instead of what they actually are.
How do you know if you’re lying to yourself? I like to take a look at time in two different ways when it comes to priorities, quantity and quality.
Quantity of Time
If you were to rank your five main priorities 1-5 and match them with the amount of time you invest on each would your results be congruent? Are you investing the most time in your #1 priority?
If not think about the things you do spend the most time on. It’s likely that the things you do spend the most time on ARE your top priorities and not the things that you wrote down.
As an example when I did this exercise I realized that I spend way too much time reading articles online and fiddling with my fantasy football team. Those were actually my top priorities, not growing my business like I want it to be.
If you say your top priority is your family but you work a nine hour day with a two hour commute each way, is your family really your top priority? It’s more likely that your top priority is going to work everyday. You could argue that you do this to support your family, but if your family was really your top priority you’d find a new job right?
You can say that one of your top five priorities is your health but if you haven’t exercised in a month and ate fast food twice this week you’re kidding yourself.
The areas where you invest your time are your real priorities, not what you wrote down on your list. Think about what you spend the most time on and write a new 1-5 list ranking the things you spend the most time on. Compare this with your first list and notice the difference.
Quality of Time
Another thing to be honest about is the quality of your time investments.
If you spend eight hours a day working, are you getting eight hours of quality work done everyday? Or do you spend most of your time doing tasks that aren’t really that important?
If one of your top priorities is your health and fitness and you spend an hour and a half each day reading about health and fitness instead of exercising, are you really focusing on your health and fitness? Wouldn’t your time be better spent if you were actually using that time to exercise?
If one of your top priorities is your family, are you investing quality time with them or are you just sitting around watching tv together? Is watching a few hours of tv equivalent to quality time?
Don’t trick yourself into thinking that your priorities are accurate just because you throw time at them. That might not be enough. Throwing Quality Time at your priorities is way more important.
How did you do on this exercise? If your results are congruent great, but if they’re not it means you’re not actually focusing on the things that are most important to you. Long term this will lead to stress and unhappiness, which I’m sure you know is unhealthy.
I wrote this article because I want to make sure everyone is investing their time in the best way for them. I’ve heard people say that their health is very important to them yet their actions aren’t in line with that belief. It’s been written that time is our most precious resource as humans. It’s one thing to believe at an intellectual level time is our most precious resource. It’s another thing entirely to be living your life as if time were your most precious resource. Use what you’ve learned reading this article and doing this exercise to help bring your time usage in line with your true desires.
Did you do the exercise? If not go back and do it, I think you’ll be surprised at your results, because I was. Once you’re done with the exercise, leave a comment at and tell me how the exercise affected you.
