Our personal life journeys are all uniquely rich and diverse. As similar as they may seem, no two paths are identical. We are each here to travel our personal journey and create what matters to us along the way. How our journeys unfold depends on how we think, speak, and the actions we take or don’t take. All these choices — both conscious and unconscious — depend on our priorities.

To understand the huge role of priorities in our lives, we need to consider the idea of what makes life worth living. What gives your life meaning and purpose? When we get to the end of our life journey, will we look back with peace, joy, and satisfaction, or will we look back with regret, resentment, and disappointment? Only you can answer how you wish to live this life and what will give you purpose, meaning, and wellbeing. There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. Once you are aware of this for yourself, you can then go on to align your choices with your priorities. However, there is one thing that all journeys have in common that make them, if we can say “successful”. That is, being in alignment with ourselves and living our life in an authentic way, meaning being true to our needs along the way, rather than getting caught up in the needs of others or swept along in society’s meaningless delusions (politics, social media, materialism, etc.).

This is, of course, not always easy, especially in the quagmire of today’s noise and distraction coming at us from every angle. The truth is that most of us have no idea what the purpose of our life is, never mind of life in general. When we attempt to align our priorities with our life purpose, we first need to be aware that this is not any kind of static, one-time thing. It is very dynamic and fluid, evolving as we evolve, and changing as we change from one life stage or season to the next. Again, only you can determine how you want to live and whether you are living authentically in alignment with your priorities. To figure things out for yourself, have the courage to ask yourself some of life’s harder questions. Make time and space to go within and listen to your inner being, as opposed to anything or anyone in the outer world. Reflect on the answers you receive. As part of this exercise, we need to list and examine our priorities. Are your priorities leading you towards or against the flow of your life experience?

As we proceed further, let’s examine the role our priorities play in determining the quality of our life and how they help us honor our personal journeys.

Your Priorities Lead the Way

For me, as a holistic wellness and consciousness expansion teacher, one of the toughest things to observe on Earth is how much people are constantly fighting against themselves. That is right, I said against themselves, not with others. (The latter is a whole other topic.) What I mean by this, more precisely, is how much most people are sabotaging their personal health and happiness on a daily basis based on the choices they make and how these are not in alignment with their priorities or intended outcomes. We say we want one thing, but we do everything against that thing, in the opposite direction. Consider the following examples.

If you want more freedom in your life, you cannot be making the choice to take on more loans, more material possessions, a bigger house, a bigger mortgage, a more invasive work schedule, etc.

If you want better present and future health, you cannot be eating indiscriminately, overeating, having a diet full of processed food or junk food, excusing destructive lifestyle habits, ignoring an unhealthy body weight, hiding behind the flawed “everything in moderation” paradigm, or working against your body’s natural healing ability with unnecessary pharmaceuticals.

If you want more love in your life, you cannot engage in spiteful behaviors, manipulation of others, judgmental criticisms, disrespect of self and others, or try to force outcomes using guilt.

If you want to experience more peace internally and externally, you cannot continue to overreact, be outraged by every external trigger, attack others, expect others to think like you or agree with how you see the world or yourself, or take things so personally.

If you want more clarity in your life, you cannot continue to immerse yourself daily in online content from conventional media and social media, keep relationships that are draining you mentally and emotionally, or continue amassing material clutter.

If you want to experience more joy in your life, you cannot keep focusing on all that is “wrong” in your life or our world, engage in negative self-talk, criticize yourself and others, or continually complain about what is and how it should be different.

I am sure that by now you are getting the point. There needs to be a certain logical connection for things to flow in the direction you are seeking. You simply cannot arrive at the place you want to be, if you keep doing things that move you in the opposite direction. Although it may not always be clear, the Universe is not a compilation of random chaos. Everything is governed by laws of cause and effect, where no action is without consequence. So if you are not getting the desired results in your life, in short, you have two main choices, as shared below. Of course, life always has grey areas that include various combinations of both, but in general, things boil down to the following:

One, you can continue to complain, lay blame, ignore, and/or pine away for what you wish or want without actually taking effective action to move you in the direction of your goal. You can continue to lament over how bad things are or how things should be different, all the while changing nothing in your personal life, habits, and choices.

OR…

Two, you can change your approach and get new results. When we change the cause, we generate a different effect. As the famous quote goes: *”Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Your life, your relationships, your body, your health, your work will not be any different, unless you do things differently than you have been. Something needs to change, and the first place to look is what your real priorities are. When you get honest and align these to the desired outcomes you wish to experience, life takes on a whole new perspective. In fact, it is nothing short of miraculous because by changing your thoughts, words, and actions, you change your choices and habits, which creates new life results for you.

When we honor our personal journeys, it is natural that many questions and doubts, perhaps even fears will come up for us. The truth is that many of us fear how others will react and respond if we start to do things differently. Imagine just a simple example: if you change your diet to be in alignment with your priority of health but your family’s eating habits do not change. Will you be supported and congratulated or judged or ridiculed by them? Either outcome is possible, but living an authentic life means being true to your needs and values. You cannot keep living for making others feel “comfortable” with the status quo while your health and wellbeing suffer. Fears will come up, but if you are ready to make effective changes in your life and align with your priorities, you just need to take the first step, which is intention. Make the intention to change. Then, comes step 2. Make a plan for how you are going to make new choices that align with your priorities. And that is really the best thing any of us can do —intend, plan, take action. When you start to align with your priorities via your thoughts, words, and actions, before you know it, your life will be reflecting a very different reality. One in which you are living with greater meaning, purpose, love, joy, peace, health, and wellbeing.

Here are some practical examples:

• If it is a relationship in your life that is out of alignment with your priorities, the solution is never to try to change the other person, but about making a plan for how to distance yourself from it, if a common understanding cannot be reached.
• If it is a dietary change that you want to do to improve your health, prepare your mind for the change using your intention. Your diet will never change until you change your mind about it. Then, make a plan for how to be successful with your dietary change, to take the right action. How will your grocery shopping need to change… How will your food preparation need to change… How will you approach social gatherings and holiday times… All of these areas need to be part of your plan, in order for you to be successful.
• If it is a job that is destroying your health, happiness, or creativity, allow yourself to intend to change it. Make a plan for how this change can become a reality. Will you have to change your shopping habits…. Will you need to downsize… Will you need to gain any new skills… Will you need to change locations… Consider all of these and make a plan of action to make your goal a reality.

No matter if it is a person, place, thing, or experience, whatever you find that is not in alignment with your authentic self and your true priorities, you owe it to yourself to make some changes and get into alignment with yourself. Just be sure that your Ego identity, which is always highly self-centered, does not sabotage relationships or work environments that are actually good and healthy for you, but ones that you are causing to be dysfunctional for whatever reason. Sometimes, getting into alignment with your priorities to change your life needs to come from within you, by bettering yourself to become a more patient, kind, loving, understanding, and considerate person. No matter what it is, start by getting clear about your priorities, and then, take the first step in a new direction. Remember, new “causes” create new “effects”, so choose consciously and wisely what you choose to change.

Putting Our Words Into Action

So what more can you do to apply these concepts on a practical level in your own life for best results?

For starters, it takes us getting really, and I mean really honest with ourselves. We cannot keep running in one direction, when everything in our heart and soul is calling us in another direction. Perhaps it is even more immediate for you, and it is your body and mind that are desperately trying to get your attention to change course on your life. Listen, and actually hear what your inner being is trying to say. The fastest way to know that we are out of alignment with our soul purpose, or simply out of alignment with our wellbeing, is that life becomes a challenging struggle on a daily basis. Just because something is perceived to be “normal”, does not make it natural. Life is only meant to be as hard as we make it.

It is also essential not to compare your journey or your results with anyone else. Remember what we talked about at the beginning. Each life journey is unique and yours is uniquely yours. The fastest way to sabotage yourself and the good things in your life is to compare yourself to others.

Hence, when we get clear and honest about our priorities, align them with our personal path and live them, life starts to take on an effortless ease. There is no mistaking this feeling. If things in your life seem to be lining up in just the right places, at just the right time, you are going in the right direction. However, if you keep running into obstacles, resistance, and road blocks, where it feels like you are perpetually “trying”, it is a clear indication that something is off track and you are going in the wrong direction. Life gives us a huge, unmistakable sign when we are in alignment; it is called flow.

You can, therefore, bet that you are out of alignment if there is a feeling within of not being at ease. Many of us live in this state chronically, where we just cannot seem to be able to relax and enjoy ourselves. But because the state is so chronic, we forget that it is not normal and not the way things were meant to be or how life was meant to be lived. Picture yourself on a row boat on a flowing river. When we are out of alignment with our personal life path, it is like constantly trying to row upstream, against the current of the river — against the current of your life. You can quickly perceive the hardship, struggle, and effort that comes with such a task. Now imagine you stop rowing, your boat naturally turns the other way with the current, and you just need to gently guide the boat as the river takes you forward without any effort. In this state, there is no resistance, no struggle, no effort — just flow.

Often following our path simply involves having the courage to stop resisting and just let go. Allow your life direction to change. Allow the river of life to carry you and guide you. Be a conscious observer and participant along the way. In this way, you have the liberty of stopping to get off along the way, and taking part in whatever may attract your attention or call you into its experience.

I wish you the strength, courage and motivation to align your priorities with your life journey. May you honor your personal journey, and the journeys of others, as we each traverse through this Earthly life experience.