Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

Keep Your Eyes on the Prize

What’s the most important thing?

The Practice:
Keep your eyes on the prize.

Why?

Have you heard this saying?

The most important thing
is to remember the most important thing
.

What are the most important things to you? In your life as a whole? During a particular interaction with someone? Right, this minute?

The most important things often get pushed to the sidelines. Urgent crowds out important. Modern life is full of distracting clamor, from text messages and emails to window displays in the mall. Other people tug at you with their priorities – which may not be your own. And it can feel scary to admit what really matters to you, tell others, and go after it for real: the fearful voices whisper in the back of the mind: What if you fail?

But if you don’t make a sanctuary for what is important, it will get overrun by the bermudagrass of B and C priorities.

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How?

Know your purpose in life. Write it down in one word, phrase, or sentence. Really. The first time someone suggested I do this, I thought they were a little nuts. But then I opened up to a kind of knowledge of what matters most to me and wrote it down. It’s OK if it changes, or if you don’t get the words just right at first. You can revise it later. Put it in positive terms and in the present tense; for example, “I am loving” is better than “I will stop getting so angry with people.” Say it out loud and see how it feels. Find words you connect with.

Keep your purpose close to your heart; it may feel sacred. If you speak of it, do so with self-respect, not self-doubt. And then, every day, as soon as you remember, recommit to your life’s purpose: rename it to yourself and give yourself over to it again.

Clarify your priorities. Identify the key aims of your life these days in a word or phrase, such as: Health. Friendship. Finances. Learning new things. Career. Marriage. Spirituality. Having fun. Parenting. Creative expression. Exploring life. Service. Maybe break up one aim into two or three; for example, “finances” could become “breaking even,” “saving for retirement,” and “becoming affluent, even wealthy.”

Then do a little exercise as an experiment: rank these aims in order of importance, with no ties allowed. If you could attain only one aim, which would it be? That’s your highest priority. Then take that one off the list, look at the aims that are left, and ask the question again: If I could attain only one of these remaining aims, which one would it be? Then repeat the process until you’re finished. Remember your purpose in life. As you go along, you may want to revise the wording of the aims or divide one aim into two or three. When you’re done, write a clean list of aims in priority order; if it feels right, keep it where you can see it each day, maybe your eyes alone. Routinely reflect on your true priorities; feel their weight; let your top priorities draw you in their direction.

Put the big rocks in the bucket first. Look at the priorities you just created, and then ask yourself: Am I giving my time, attention, and energy in proportion to these priorities? And sit with the answer for a while. Don’t feel you need to change your life right away. There are usually some conflicts between your priorities and your actions. Live with that tension; don’t push it away. Keep letting your true priorities speak to you. What do they say?

It’s normal to be committed to big chunks of time doing things that are necessary but not high priorities per se, such as commuting or doing housework. Consider how you could weave one or more top priorities into these relatively low-priority periods. For example, listen to an inspiring talk while you’re on the bus, or pay mindful attention to your breath while doing dishes.

Also, see what realistic changes you can gradually make in your time, in the people you see, is what you give your attention to, in how you spend your money. Build your priorities into your daily schedule and monthly budget. For example, start your day with a time of reflection, meditation, uplifting reading, yoga, art, or exercise. Or, when you pay the bills, write the first check to your own savings account, even if it’s only for a single dollar.

Stay focused on your priorities in important interactions. Lots of interactions kind of bounce around, and that’s OK. But sometimes there’s an important stake on the table, like identifying a key deliverable at work, or saying what you really feel to your partner, or pinning down a homework plan for your child. In these cases, it’s common for the conversation to go off on tangents, get hijacked emotionally, or fall into a kitchen sink full of related issues – but then the main point doesn’t get resolved. Instead, keep reminding yourself of the result you’d like out of the interaction. It doesn’t have to be the whole Megillah: sometimes it’s best to focus on something concrete and manageable that’s attainable. Don’t take the “bait” of inflammatory or distracting statements by others; keep coming back to the main point; you can deal with those other issues later – if ever. Obviously, be open to discovering that there is something even more important to talk about than what you first thought. But always be clear about what your priorities are, even if they change.

Take care of yourself. This is definitely an important thing – perhaps the most fundamental of all. As they say on an airplane, “Put your own oxygen mask on first.” Or as the Buddha put it a long time ago: “If one going down into a river, swollen and swiftly flowing, is carried away by the current – how can one help others across?”

Know Someone Who Could Focus More on the Important Things?

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Dr. Ramani Durvasula is a licensed clinical psychologist, author, and expert on the impact of toxic narcissism. She is a Professor of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles, and also a Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg.

The focus of Dr. Ramani’s clinical, academic, and consultative work is the etiology and impact of narcissism and high-conflict, entitled, antagonistic personality styles on human relationships, mental health, and societal expectations. She has spoken on these issues to clinicians, educators, and researchers around the world.

She is the author of Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship With a Narcissist, and Don't You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility. Her work has been featured at SxSW, TEDx, and on a wide range of media platforms including Red Table Talk, the Today Show, Oxygen, Investigation Discovery, and Bravo, and she is a featured expert on the digital media mental health platform MedCircle. Dr. Durvasula’s research on personality disorders has been funded by the National Institutes of Health and she is a Consulting Editor of the scientific journal Behavioral Medicine.

Dr. Stephen Porges is a Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He is a former president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and has been president of the Federation of Behavioral, Psychological, and Cognitive Sciences, which represents approximately twenty-thousand biobehavioral scientists. He’s led a number of other organizations and received a wide variety of professional awards.

In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological states in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders, and has had a major impact on the field of psychology.

Dr. Porges has published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers across a wide array of disciplines. He’s also the author of several books including The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation.

Dr. Bruce Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network, Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy, and a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago and the School of Allied Health at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia. From 1993 to 2001 he was the Thomas S. Trammell Research Professor of Psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of psychiatry at Texas Children's Hospital.

He’s one of the world’s leading experts on the impact of trauma in childhood, and his work on the impact of abuse, neglect, and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs, and policy across the world. His work has been instrumental in describing how traumatic events in childhood change the biology of the brain.

Dr. Perry's most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey, was released earlier this year. Dr. Perry is also the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children, and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Additionally, he’s authored more than 300 journal articles and book chapters and has been the recipient of a variety of professional awards.

Dr. Allison Briscoe-Smith is a child clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma and issues of race. She earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard and then received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley. She performed postdoctoral work at the University of California San Francisco/San Francisco General Hospital. She has combined her love of teaching and advocacy by serving as a professor and by directing mental health programs for children experiencing trauma, homelessness, or foster care.

Dr. Briscoe-Smith is also a senior fellow of Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and is both a professor and the Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Wright Institute. She provides consultation and training to nonprofits and schools on how to support trauma-informed practices and cultural accountability.

Sharon Salzberg is a world-renowned teacher and New York Times bestselling author. She is widely considered one of the most influential individuals in bringing mindfulness practices to the West, and co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts alongside Jack Kornfield and Joseph Goldstein. Sharon has been a student of Dipa Ma, Anagarika Munindra, and Sayadaw U Pandita alongside other masters.

Sharon has authored 10 books, and is the host of the fantastic Metta Hour podcast. She was a contributing editor of Oprah’s O Magazine, had her work featured in Time and on NPR, and contributed to panels alongside the Dalai Lama.

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