How To Prioritize Your Life and Make Time For What Matters Most

On this Wisdom Wednesday, I ask you the question; what benefit is it to gain the whole world, if it cost you your soul? I reflect, meditate, and ponder on this question often when I am advising my clients. It's my belief as a financial planner that my ultimate job is to make sure you accomplish your financial goals without sacrificing your life goals. Discover how to prioritize your life and make time for what matters most.

Measure the cost

Oftentimes we feel, if we have our money right, then we can make time to do the other things. You'll be able to take more trips with your family, if you get your money right first. We'll do almost anything to get our money right because we believe it is holding back so much.

But what did it cost you to get your money right? Did it cost you your family along the way? If it did, then you're spending the money to buy back those relationships and it doesn't always work out that way.

Don't sell yourself short

What if the cost to be successful in a particular environment is your integrity, morals, or something you're passionate about? Imagine being wealthy, but feeling empty because the cost was too great? You feel as though you are selling yourself short or even worse, you feel as though you are selling out. It is as though you are selling a part of your essence to gain the world. While the world is nice, the world doesn't give you the most meaningful aspects of happiness... your health, family and causes that you believe in.

Success and happiness

It is essential to make sure your financial plan is aligned with your overall life goals. How it is that you see success and happiness is often going to be a heavy consideration into how we achieve your financial goals. If someone tells me their family is very important to them. Then we want to make sure we have a legacy plan in place.

That's not just this idea of I'm going to pass a bag of money onto my kids when I die. It's what I'm going to do with my time with them on this earth. What am I going to teach my kids along the way so when they receive the money they're able to be successful with it. They understand what I learned in my transformation, because that is a part of our job as parents and mentors for our kids.

To be able to pass all the things we learn a little bit earlier, so that they're able to be that much more successful by the time they reach our age. You want to make sure that you keep these things in mind.

Everything has a price

The big thing to understand is that there is a cost and tradeoff to everything. At a minimum, you have to give your time. More times than not, we give much more than our time. We give a part of ourself towards the things that we do. Whether it's the work that we do or our kids and raising them.

You want to make sure you're never giving so much of yourself, that you then want to buy that portion of yourself back. Because sometimes we can't afford the cost to buy it back. Sometimes we sacrifice our health to get the wealth, and then we spend all of the wealth to get our health back, but we can never get our health back. You want to make sure that you're always keeping in mind what the cost is that you are paying. Because again, what benefit is it to gain the whole world if it cost you your soul?

The Wisdometric Framework

That's why within the Wisdometric Framework, we focus on the knowledge with the understanding and then the wisdom. You want to make sure you are accomplishing your goals. Not only in the most efficient and effective way possible, but you also want to make sure you're accomplishing your goals in a manner that you can be proud of.

You want to make sure you're not focusing on any one aspect of your life. You want to take a comprehensive and holistic look at your life and what happiness looks like. Everything from your health, to your wealth, to your overall contribution to the world, to your family and friends.

Prioritize your life

It's a lot of spinning plates. Wisdom is understanding which ones we can let spin a little slowly and which ones we have to give the most attention. There is a proper order to doing anything and everything. If you've listened to me, you heard me talk about it before.

I even forget where the example came from, but is the idea that if you have a jar you need to fill with sand, pebbles and rocks. There is a certain order you must fill the jar for everything to fit. If you place the sand in first, the pebbles and rocks won't fit. Conversely, if you place the pebbles in first, only the sand will fit. Ideally, we want to create the plan in a way that allows you to capture everything. That is going to be the large rocks first, followed by the pebbles and ending with the sand.

The larger rocks represent your long term goals. You usually only get two to three life goals, so choose wisely. Then the pebbles are your medium term goals. These tend to goals that take 5-10 years to accomplish. You then end with your short term goals; represented by the sand. These are your goals that fall within the one to three year range.

Make time for what matters most

Your financial and life plan should start with your long-term goals. Then your medium term goals should help you achieve your long term goals. Your short term goals should help you achieve your medium term goals, which should help you achieve your long-term goals.

You don't want to sacrifice your long term goal because you're focusing on a short term goal. You don't want to lose out on a medium term goal, because you're focusing on the short term goals. You want to make sure your plan is aligned in a way that the cost isn't too much. That you're not sacrificing or selling your soul for a moment of satisfaction that feels really good in the here and now.

Final thoughts

Warren Buffet said, "Success is getting what you want, while happiness is wanting what you get". It's very important we keep that in mind. Whenever it comes to defining success and what happiness looks like overall. Remember to count the cost to ensure you are never paying too much for perceived happiness. Prioritize your life by aligning your daily activities with your annual and life lifetime goals.