Different People, Different Methods, Different Priorities: Setting Better Priorities, Part Four

The idea that different kinds of people will have the most success by using different kinds of methods to set different priorities may seem like common sense. Unfortunately, it isn’t.

Anyone who has read a few books, blogs, or articles on personal development knows that common is hardly the word for the seemingly obvious idea that each individual person will only achieve their individual best by using their own individual method for setting priorities.

Nearly every school of thought on personal development has its method for how to set priorities. And nearly every person who learns about one of those methods thinks, or at least hopes, that the method will work. And sometimes it will work decently. Sometimes it will even be a pretty good fit. But more often, it won’t, and for a very basic reason.

Different people don’t look identical, think identical, or even smell identical, so why on earth should they be using identical methods for assessing and setting their priorities?

Each one of those systems, with its rules and lists and methods that prescribe how to set priorities, can only tell you how to set priorities that work for one kind of person. And you may not be that one kind of person. In fact, if you've ever experienced burn out, frustration, or hopelessness after trying to follow a "system" for a few days, or even a few weeks, it's likely that you're not the particular kind of person who that particular system of priority setting methods was designed by or for.

What then?

To set priorities that will work for you, you need self-knowledge.

Self-knowledge isn’t a 30-day system to success, or a ten step ladder that you can climb by answering the questions posed to you in a book or a quiz. It isn’t a method or a system that you can crack or hack, and there aren’t any rules about how to gain it. I’m not going to teach you to unlock the secrets of your self knowledge, and I’m not going to give you any phony, too-good-to-be-true rhetoric about how to look inside yourself.

What I am going to do is offer you some practical, actionable techniques that will keep you company on your journey to greater self-knowledge. They won’t get you there by themselves, but they’ll help you hail the cab, or get together the money for the train ticket.

I’m going to offer you jumping off points, starting points, openers for the great conversation that only you can have with yourself. I’m going to offer them in the final part of this series, Know Yourself, Know Your Priorities.

More Posts On Priorities:

The Limousine: Setting Better Priorities, Part One
What Good Priorities Do: Setting Better Priorities, Part Two
Priorities That Stop You In Your Tracks: Setting Better Priorities, Part Three