What To Do When You Feel Like You Need to Do Everything All At Once

I get it.

You have lots of big dreams and ideas. You want to do everything and you want to do it NOW.

Here’s the problem though. All those different goals you’ve got are spreading you too thin. You can’t make much progress because you’re bouncing from one to the next before you’re able to get anything solidified.

This can be the case whether it’s big life goals or just your day-to-day to-do list.

There’s a rather straightforward if uninspiring solution to all of it. You need to pick one or two to focus on and go from there.

But which one or two do you pick? And how are we supposed to be content with one goal when we feel like we need to work on all of them to get our lives where we want?

Well, read on…

Why Is It So Hard to Pick One Thing?

I see it happen all the time. People come to me feeling like their life isn’t where they want it to be.

They don’t like their job. Their living situation is unideal. They have all kinds of ideas for side gigs or new careers, but they feel paralyzed by all the options. This is on top of anything they might want to do to improve their health, relationships, or overall wellbeing.

This week they’re doing yoga. Next week they’ve signed up for a new career oriented boot camp. The week after that they decide that maybe their best bet is to try and making a living with a creative art idea they have. And then on week four they’ve decided what they really need to do is to get out on the dating scene again.

All these goals might be important and add to the value of a person’s life, but when you jump back and forth from one to another you only end up exhausting yourself while basically accomplishing nothing.

The Importance of Prioritizing Your Goals

So what do you do when you have lots of goals and things in your life that you want to change, but you simply can’t do them all at once?

You need to start by picking the one or two goals or changes that will have the most impact, and prioritizing you attention there. Oftentimes it can even be helpful to think about what will have the most impact for the least amount of effort. That can point you in the direction of making some important progress quickly.

Once you’ve made progress with this first goal, it will hopefully lead to further progress in other areas too. For one, the accomplishment will hopefully provide some positive momentum. And secondly, achieving goals and making changes in your life is skill in itself. The more you practice this skill, the better you’ll get at it.

With any luck, it will all build upon itself. Massive progress in one or two areas will open doors for greater progress in others too if you give it a chance.

How To Prioritize Your Goals

There are a number of different ways to prioritize your goals.

One method is to create a list of all your goals. Place them in a list of rough order, and then start at the bottom and go through each one. As you pull out one goal, compare it to the other goal immediately above it on the list. If you had to choose between the two, which would it be? Now compare the winner with the next highest item on the list and so on until you find where the current goal lands. Continue to do this with every goal on the list by going back to the bottom each time and working your way up. By the end you should have them in a very clear order.

This method is popular, but the problem I have with it, is that while it gives you importance of the goals, it doesn’t take into account what you can realistically create starting from where you are now.

I recommend a different approach.

First, start by listing out all your goals. This can be from big to small. Moving to Italy, starting a new career, and buying a cast iron pan all go on the same list.

The next step is to rank them in order of impact or importance. Which would be the most amazing and life changing goals to achieve, and which would be only a nominal improvement on where you’re at now.

The third step is to rank the same list in order of ease or simplicity. What goal can you achieve by spending $40 at Target tomorrow vs another goal that will require a lifetime of diligence and effort to make happen?

Now compare these two lists. What items are closest to the top of both lists?

These are the items that can create the most impact for the least amount of effort. Start knocking those out and see where the momentum takes you. You might be pleasantly surprised!

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If you found this method of prioritizing your goals helpful, I want to share with you a way that you can take it deeper. It’s a more involved process that will take some more work, but so many of my clients have found it incredibly valuable.

I’m still working on writing it out, but fill out the form below to let me know you’re interested and you’ll be the first to know when it comes available.

Get the Goal Prioritization Worksheet

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