In our daily life we often get glimpses of what we are capable of doing, sometimes a flicker of what we are destined to be or a hint of what we desire to become in life. It could be a feeling of dissatisfaction with the job you are stuck when you wanted to do something of your own or a yearning to lose weight which you are postponing, or a burst of inspiration to write a book which you wanted to write but are not able to start. You must also be having some desires which give you a calling. But before that call starts to take a serious turn you are dragged into the urgency of life.
You get a tight deadline at your work or your phone rings or your car is low on gas. Your attention gets diverted and you delay your dream for one more day.
How to get over it? How to start living the life you wanted to live instead of attending from one emergency to another.
The next 10 years of your life you are going to do something. And it will mostly be responding to something urgent rather than pursuing what is important for you. Your desire to do something important will be subdued by the urgency to make money. Too often your urgency not to miss office will subdue your desire to lose those extra pounds. Too often your ability to be satisfied in life will be subdued by your urgency to get noticed and appreciated.
There is no running away from the fact that we need money. And there is also no running away from the fact that there are times when we require holding the urgent things in life so that we can get the crazy life under control. Most of our life is based on what is urgent to us instead of what is important to us. We keep on putting off each year what is important to us.
Unless you draw a line somewhere and decide that you want to live an important life then only you will start thinking of giving you life a clear direction. Then only you will develop the courage to say to yourself that this is important for me and I am going to go for it. This will be the beginning of your important life and the end of an urgent life. This will help you to avoid falling into the trap of urgent life again.
If your goal is to write a book then that goal gives you purpose and direction. Whenever you will have a free moment you will write another paragraph. When you will have a new idea, you will try to correlate it with the goal you have set. You will organise your life to accomplish your goal. This first step is the most difficult – to shift our focus from the urgent to the important.
We do have many things to attend every day, an urgent phone call, an urgent assignment, a sick friend to visit and so on. But when you have shifted the focus then you will be able to fall back to your goal with ease after completing those urgent tasks. This will prevent you from falling back into the whirlwind of urgency as now you are aware of your specific goal.
It is important to understand the difference between a goal and a task. Your desire will be to get in shape but your task will be to do 50 push ups in a row. To start a business will be a desire and to get the first paying client will be the first task in that direction. For the desire to write a book, completing the first chapter will be the task.
What seems to be important for us is never urgent for us. This is the nature of goal; it never demands our attention right now. For this reason we give importance to the urgent than the important. Goal is for the long haul and requires a sense of purpose and clear direction and perseverance.
But don’t let the seeds of greatness slip through your fingers and begin your slow march towards your goal. Fulfil your dream.
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