“P” is for Priority

Image Credit: ​Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay 

​I had a chance to attend a private workshop by Gerald Weinberg a couple years ago through a close friend and mentor of mine. 

I had the desire to learn about the topic, had the connection to get me in touch with him, had the money. 

But something came up and I never gotta to go. Gerald died a year after. 

I never attended the workshop. 

I don’t remember what was so darn important that I decided to skip the workshop, but I missed it. 

The lesson is: When you have priorities in your life, you must do your due diligence to follow through on them. There will ALWAYS be reasons not to follow through. 

I can tell you that whatever reason I had for not going to that workshop had absolutely zero long-term impact on my life. I may have firmly believed, at the time, that it was the reason that prevented me from going to Gerald's workshop. 

In reality, it was just a lame excuse. 

“It’s SUPPOSED to be hard. That’s what makes it so special. If it was easy, everybody would do it.” 

 --- From “A League of Their Own” 

You will get distracted. It’s human nature. 

Like a few years ago, I decided that writing is important to me and I’d like to write on a regular basis. But yesterday, when I checked, I hadn’t written in MONTHS. 

There will always be projects you really, really don’t wanna start…phone calls you really, really don’t wanna make…or a long list of things that must be done that you would prefer not to do…

Even though I enjoy writing a great deal, I struggle to sit down in front of an empty page. It’s much easier to watch Netflix, or lay on a hammock, or take a nap.  

In the business world, strategic planning involves deciding on priorities because resources are ALWAYS constrained. 

The key is to make tough choices on how you want to allocate resources based on priorities. 

It is about making explicit trade-off decision, in business or in life. 

Choose your priorities wisely. 

Thoughts or comments? Feel free to email me at siweidodge@gmail,com, I read every email from you.