3 Concepts I Use to Manage My Life

As I get older, I realize that life can quite simply be what you make of it. Those of us that want something greater for ourselves must learn the steps to take to get there. Along the way, we discover how to prioritize, organize and sacrifice. Those three things are the most important when creating the life you want.

Before I thoroughly explain those three words at the top, I want to acknowledge the thing you must do before taking those steps. This might actually be the hardest obstacle to get over. Before we take action into changing our lives, we have to first make that decision. It sounds so simple, but we often forget to realize how deeply rooted we may be in our already established daily habits. Being able to say 'no' to the life we are attached to takes a leap of faith, but when we do take that leap it will be one of the greatest decisions we ever make.

There is so much more to that decision-making process and I will probably make another blog post about that. However, here are the three practical concepts that I personally use to help me turn my life around and remain on that course.

Organize & Prioritize

Recently, my schedule has become more busy than usual, which has forced me to actually start utilizing my scheduling app on my phone. Now, I have never considered myself as someone to be solely dictated by a scheduling app, but I am getting to the point where I don't know how to live without it.

The month of June alone was incredibly busy for me and that surge of productivity seemed to come out of nowhere. I had all types of appointments and engagements to attend to and without the app something would have definitely been forgotten. Actually, some things were forgotten because it wasn't on the calendar!

Now, going into July, I have a new part-time job, so things are starting to shift on my schedule. That is kind of how life works, we close old chapters and start new ones, and then adjust to the new way of living. Using a calendar is definitely making things easier to manage and remember. This is how I have been able to organize my life events better.

Another thing that I believe scheduling will help with is prioritizing. For instance, I take my relationships in my life very serious. If I know that I want to spend time with my friends and family, I will put that into my schedule as well. It doesn't matter if I am going out to eat with a friend, going to the movies with my family, or just hanging out with someone, it's on my schedule.

Now before you start thinking I'm some scheduling guru, I would like to say that I am not an expert at scheduling because I think there are some things that I can improve on when marking things down. For instance, categorizing my events on my schedule might help with prioritization. Going to the movies by myself one night might not be as important as making it to the gym in the morning.

Adding a sense of customization will enhance the way I understand what things are most important and needs to be completed versus what things I can potentially reschedule and move to a different date.

Sacrifice

Which leads me into the topic of making sacrifices. I am sure that most people reading this are goal-oriented people. As you may know, in order to accomplish those goals it will require you to make a few sacrifices. As Thanos, one of the greatest villains, once said, "The hardest choices require the strongest wills."

For instance, one of my goals is to grow stronger legs. I already have a consistent gym schedule, but now I am rearranging some of my gym days to put more focus on my legs. Instead of working out my legs twice a week, I bumped it up to three times. Of course, I may need to do more tailoring when it comes to what types of exercises I do, but I at least updated my schedule. It might as well be set in stone.

That is just one example that I have discovered is a way that I have made sacrifices for myself. When it comes to other goals, like financial or personal, I take similar action. If I need a little extra cash in my pocket, I will sacrifice my sleep and wake up earlier to go out and Uber or Doordash for extra money.

I am also learning Spanish as my second language and that requires a lot of time. I already have a Spanish tutor that I speak with five days out of the week, but I still need to dedicate more time if I want to reach the level that I desire.

When I think about the sacrifices I make, I begin to realize how much I truly care about those personal goals that I set for myself. Sometimes that forces me to become more critical about my daily actions. If I miss a day at the gym or don't practice Spanish I can be a little hard on myself. Of course, I am not endorsing the act of beating yourself up, but I do know how I can get when I am my own critic.

I want to encourage you readers to remain steadfast and focused on your goals, but also enjoy the journey and be gentle on yourself. Sometimes we can get so consumed during our self-improvement journey that we will inflict mental harm on ourselves when things don't go our way. It's okay if a friend invites you to an event that wasn't on your schedule or maybe you have to spend a day with your parent because they presented you with an unskippable side quest. Say 'yes' sometimes. Don't close yourself off from the people you love just because you are so focused on being somewhere you currently aren't. That will eventually lead you to loneliness and inevitably become unhappy.

This is all my own personal opinion, of course, so take this information with a grain of salt. However, I do hope that this blog post proved itself to be useful to you in someway. Thank you for spending the time to read what was on my mind. Until the next post.

Jefferson K. Coe