Choosing What Matters In Life

Work/Life Balance

Your work-life balance often gets out of whack because of the choices you make throughout your day. You choose to stay late at the office impacts the time you have to spend with your family. Choosing to go out fishing with your boys changes the amount of time you can commit to volunteering at your local church.

Know what matters most to you in life

Photo by Helena Lopes

Each and every decision you make reduces the amount of time you have to commit in another area of your life. This is why you have to choose what matters in your life.

Making A Choice

Your day is packed with activities. From running the corporate, or church, office to planning your child’s birthday party, to finding time with your spouse. Everything is calling for your attention.

But you can’t choose everything. If you did, you’d choose nothing.

I’ve discovered there are choices you want to make and choices you don’t want to make. One of the choices I made early in my life was to spend time with my parents.

Call me a mama’s boy or daddy’s boy all you want. I’m okay with that. I’ve made this decision because I know there’s a limited amount of time I will get to spend with my parents. One day they’ll be gone.

I can choose to spend time with them now or not. Eventually, I won’t have that choice. There will be a day where my parents are gone and I won’t be able to stop over on a Wednesday night. So, for now, I make the choice to visit.

And that’s what all of our lives are. A choice. We choose to do one thing or another. Or we choose to do nothing at all.

Choosing What Matters

I looked at my life and decided what was important in it. My wife, my dog, my parents, my family… These things mean a lot to me. So, I choose to make my life and schedule work around them.

You need to choose what matters in your life. Figure out what your priorities are. Then make a conscious decision to live a life that screams “These things are important to me!

Before Pam and I married, we discussed what was important in our lives. One of the things we decided on was we would go to church together every Sunday.

I made some compromises in this area. I chose to bend the agreement a bit and work one Sunday a month at Family Christian Stores.

The store manager presented an opportunity. He saw potential in me and wanted me to become the assistant store manager at another Family Christian Store about an hour away. I was fine with the drive. It would’ve added a bit more to the commute but it was doable.

What wasn’t doable was the increased amount of Sundays they wanted me to work. When I let them know of my choice, they chose not to hire me as the assistant store manager. This also led to my being let go…

Your Choices Have A Consequence

Yes, I made a choice. The store also made a choice.

But you know what? Regardless of the consequences of my choice, I wouldn’t change the decision I made. I had made a commitment to my wife and I wasn’t going to break it.

You’re going to be tested when you choose what matters in your life. You may lose a job, friends, and opportunities.

What you gain though… You will gain so much more. You will have experiences you wouldn’t have been able to before and you will have memories that will last a lifetime.

Look at the choices before you. Look at your life and your desires. Then make choices based on what matters.

You won’t go wrong with them.

Question: Are you choosing what matters or what makes money? 

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