2022 May 10 Let your goals guide you

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website by, for, and about Baby Boomers. Thanks for joining me tonight for just a few thoughts about priorities and flexibility. So, let’s get started. 

First, as always, the regular reminder: I’m not a medical professional. I will be talking about things that I personally find useful and helpful. If you find yourself feeling truly helpless or depressed, please, please, seek out professional medical help or assistance in some form or just dial (911). Starting on July 11, 2022, (988) will be available, which should connect you immediately to assistance. Good to know for yourself or a friend. Keep those numbers in mind.

Suicide Hotline number: (800) 273-8255

This week is going to be especially short, because late in the afternoon today I received a call, and an appointment slot had opened up. The slot unfortunately was just about the time I was going to do the broadcast, so I had to make a decision right on the spot. That’s one of the big advantages, however, of when you set goals and you work with predefined priorities, because one of my current priorities is to focus on my health more and my physical condition, both of which really have suffered a lot during the whole work-from-home pandemic thing. Another priority is the podcast, but that comes after my own health, because I can’t do the podcast if I’m not feeling well. 

While the call was unexpected, the decision was easy because I’d already developed some core priorities - which reminds me of a saying I heard recently from Tony Robbins. “A healthy person has many wishes, but a sick person only has one wish.”  So I’m not really that ill, It wasn’t that, but it was an appointment that I’ve been waiting for. So back to the topic - you define your goals and your priorities. Suddenly, many things in life become much simpler. As another example, I’ve gotten drawn into a number of, Hey, Jim, can you help with..?  These little things that pop up and fill in the blank as to whatever it is somebody wants help with. 

One of them has been somewhat time consuming. People probably don’t figure that it is, but it actually takes quite a bit of time to get stuff together and organize things. Someone just came to me today with a really good idea - something that I could do to make the contact list better. I thought about it, and replied back. Great idea. Can you do it? Because I can use some help, because self-care is very important. It has to be important, so that you can continue to help others. It wasn’t that I didn’t say no. It’s like, Good idea, but let’s share the load. You can’t just keep giving me more things to do. 

Finally, it’s really important to surround yourself with people who raise your spirit and challenge you to be better. That doesn’t always mean trying to move up to better friends. I’ve certainly known people like that. But it does mean that you want to have at least some friends in your circle who really make you want to improve your game in every way. Whether it's to set your goals higher, be more active, be more outright, change your relationship with people, change your relationship in whatever way. You want to have some people around who really challenge you that way. 

If it’s a one way street of always giving to help other people, it seems really satisfying, But eventually you just get worn down. If your friends can challenge you to improve and help you get more enjoyment out of life, you’ll be energized and all the little problems in life will stay little. You’ll just want to keep going and it makes you really excited. These three things of setting your goals and your priorities, we talked about extensively. Envision what you want to do and then, automatically, your brain will guide you to do things to fulfill your goals and your priorities. 

Remember that you have to stay flexible. Life always has little challenges that come up, and if you have priorities set in advance, those little challenges then become very easy to work through. When something unexpected happens, you just take the choice that is more aligned with your priorities. It's actually very simple then. There’s no Oh, should I do this? Should I do that?  One of them is in line with your priorities, and one of them probably isn’t as aligned. So you take the one that definitely plays more to how you envision your life. 

The third thing, of course, is, make sure you always keep some friends in your circle of friends who really challenge you. It’s great to always help other people, and it’s a lot of fun to do, but you also want people to help you just by helping you be a better person. 

That’s it for the evening. Like I said, very brief, because off I go in just a minute, but thanks for stopping by. Stay healthy. Take care of others. Remember, you have to take care of yourself. You can always be working at your best to make the most out of life 

This is the hotline I talked about at the opening. Suicide Hotline number: (800) 273-8255 (or 988).  The other one is very important, supporting Ukraine. Things are still raging over there. If anything, they’re getting worse and it's really important that you keep those people not only in your prayers and in your minds but also to pester your senators and and your representatives and all those people. Write to whomever, talk about it to other people. It's really super important. 

One of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. Please check out UKR7.com. Lots of ways to help. If you can’t do anything right now, that’s awesome. I understand. Direct other people to it. This has nothing to do with me. This is just links to other places that manage humanitarian and other aid to Ukraine. 

So, as always, be true to yourself. Live the life that is aligned with your true goals and feelings and then things get a lot simpler all the way around. That’s it for the week. Thanks for stopping by. If you found something of interest or useful, please pass it along. If not, please drop me a comment and let me know what you like to hear about. Have a great week. Thanks for visiting. Remember to live the life that you dreamed of, because that’s the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everybody. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com.