Will Lukang, PMP, CSM, MBA, MASCL

In my prior post Life Lessons,   I shared my career/life experiences that I thought would be helpful to others.    In this blog, I decided to focus on one of the topics and expand on it.  I choose to start with the most important thing: big rocks and small rocks of life.   Why?  Because if we don’t address what matters the most to us, we will be pulled in ten different directions and miss what matters to us.

There are a lot of competing priorities in our life.  Work, family and extended families demand our time and attention.  It is a constant tug and pull.  If we don’t determine what’s important to us, we might be doing the wrong thing and not accomplishing our goal.    The age of instant gratification and advancement of technology do help us stay connected, but then we lose our ability to have downtime and recharge our energy.

In my opinion the big rocks are health, family, then work and others come after.  But what matters to me is not necessarily the same thing that matters to other people.   For some people, work comes first and that’s perfectly fine.   So, what are the ways of determining our priorities?

• Find out what is important to you and what you value the most. In my case, it’s my health.  Without my health I cannot accomplish anything I set out to do.
• What’s the next thing that keeps you going, or your purpose in life? It could be family or charity work or a passion for helping others.   It could be learning or sharing your passion to develop others.
• Big Rocks should be easy to identify. Unfortunately that’s not the case because some of the big rocks change as we go through the various stages in life.  Stepping back and refocusing your energy will help you get a clear picture of what is important to you.

Once you’ve identified the big rocks, or those things that matter to you the most, you can focus your energy on getting those done before you let the small rocks/pebbles take up the rest of your capacity.    It would be sad to go through life and realized that we did not accomplish what we set out to do.   If you have not identified your big rocks, do not worry – it is never too late.  Start today and list your big rocks. You’ll see tomorrow with a different lens because the picture is clearer.   Let me know how it goes.  I would love to hear your stories.