“I have two kinds of problems: the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.”
Dwight D Eisenhower
One of the hardest things in life is saying “yes” to what you know is truly important, and “no” to what just looks and smells important in the moment.
It can feel selfish to go and work on your novel when your family’s finances have been slowly getting more and more precarious. It can feel irresponsible to go see a friend and share a belly-laugh when you know you have an assignment due this week. And it can feel downright rude to ask your boss not to contact you with work problems at the weekend because that’s family time.
And yet… if you don’t draw these lines in the sand deliberately and consciously, what do you think the chances are that they’ll get drawn at all?
First, you must decide what matters to you. Second, you must exercise the courage to put it first when push comes to shove. And I promise you, push will come to shove.