I don’t.

I never liked the saying “If it’s important to you, you’ll prioritize it.” There’s nothing wrong with good-intended advice under the right circumstance. However, without context, the saying could be incredibly damaging on the receiving end.

Think about it – people are bombarded with advice and aspirational lifestyles throughout most of their days. We see pretty pictures online, we follow beautiful Instagram accounts and we memorialize high-achieving individuals who seem to ‘have it all,’ not realizing that they have spent more years working toward those accomplishments than some of us have even been alive.

  • What if I want to do it all, but I can’t because I have to have multiple jobs to feed my family?

  • What if I can’t prioritize work right now because I have health troubles?

  • What if I’m just depressed and it’s hard enough to get up in the morning?

Reality check: Depressed people can still have hopes and dreams.

Now, I believe that you have to prioritize something in order to accomplish anything, otherwise we would never be able to do anything. However, I don’t believe that you have to change everything in your life or drop all commitments in order to do it.

For example, writing in my journal “I want to be famous” isn’t going to magically make me famous because I stand outside of a talent agency every day for a month. What it does do, it provides me with an aspirational goal that I can break down into snack-bites and achieve.

Instead of prioritizing the goal of becoming famous, I can prioritize learning what about fame I like and then pursue those steps. Whether it’s being in front of a camera, seizing an abundance of wealth or inspiring thousands of people in the world, I can take those moments and learn to integrate them into my life over time. By understanding that I have a goal, I can then create levels of success along the way to achieve the ultimate dream.

Success over time.

Success with balance.

Success with peace.

Success without burnout.

Success with patience.

Success with resilience.

You can’t do it all at once.

But you can do it all.