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Sunday, August 28, 2022
Most people don’t like to be challenged, to have our values or things we say challenged – we get defensive, not based on logic, but because challenges often come disguised as criticism, invalidation, or disdain.
When we are kids or young athletes, we respond well to the challenges and encouragement from parents, teachers and coaches. The notion of being asked what we think or why we do something is simple and not threatening.
Later in life, these challenges take on nuance and get measured against our failings and perceived shortcomings more than as a roadmap to being better or more successful. And we tend to take it personally. I know I have, many times, but some of that is shifting.
Case in point, the other day, I was talking about priorities.
We know what those are, or we think we do.
A friend challenged me, suggesting that if I had more than one priority, then none of them were a priority. His suggestion/challenge was that we could only have one priority – that we can’t have three #1 priorities, or ten or a hundred, we can only have one. This caused me to run this discussion through my head several times last evening, and I wanted to ‘get this down’ while it’s fresh.
If I examine everything I do, each one is attached to some definition of why it is important, as so many of them are, so how do we rank them? I expect most of us would have trouble narrowing the most important things down through a priority lens to get to ten, or five, or three – but getting to one, only one, is new-think for me.
It’s easy to say breathing is my top priority.
But what about eating? Does that become #2?
I’ve been shifting the emphasis of my work, my immediate and long-term plans, and where I’m spending my energy lately, and I expect that to become profound in the next while – and now my friend has thrown a wrench in my gears. And I’m glad of that.
Reader feedback:
Cheers to “double overtime”!, RH, Calgary, AB
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