remained unpluralized until around the 20th century, when the world
apparently demoted it to mean generally “something that matters”
and the plural “priorities” appeared. With the loss of its initial intent,
a wide variety of sayings like “most pressing matter,” “prime
concern,” and “on the front burner” pitched in to recapture the
essence of the original. Today, we elevate priority to its former
meaning by adding “highest,” “top,” “first,” “main,” and “most
important” in front of it. It would seem priority has traveled an
interesting road.
So, watch your language. You may have many ways to talk about
priority, but no matter the words you choose, to achieve extraordinary
results your meaning must be the same—ONE Thing.
Whenever I teach goal setting I make it my top priority to show
how a goal and a priority work together. I do this by asking, “Why do
we set goals and create plans?” In spite of all the good answers I get,
the truth is we have goals and plans for only one reason—to be
appropriate in the moments of our lives that matter. While we may
pull from the past and forecast the future, our only reality is the
present moment. Right NOW is all we have to work with. Our past is
but a former now, our future a potential one. To drive this point home,
I started referring to the way to create a powerful priority as “Goal
Setting to the Now” to emphasize why we were creating a priority in
the first place.
The truth about success is that our ability to achieve
extraordinary results in the future lies in stringing together powerful
moments, one after the other. What you do in any given moment
determines what you experience in the next. Your “present now” and
all “future nows” are undeniably determined by the priority you live
in the moment. The deciding factor in determining how you set that
priority is who wins the battle between your present and future selves.
If you’re offered a choice of $100 today or $200 next year, which
would you choose? The $200, right? You would if your goal were to
coco
(coco)
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