Juggling Lifeballs
Priorities, goals and your $84,600 gift
Have you ever watched someone juggle balls?
First, they start with 2 balls…
Up and down they flow easily moving from hand to air and back to hand again.
Then they add a 3rd…
A 4th…
And a 5th…
Yet all remains well.
The juggler is in total control and owns his or her little universe.
All balls are cared for and none are being dropped at the expense of another.
As more and more balls get added to the mix though, the juggler begins to struggle.
What was once elegant, effortless, and smooth turns laborious and burdensome.
And then it happens…
A ball gets dropped, and like a chain reaction, other balls begin falling to the floor as well.
While you may not be a juggler, have you ever felt like this in your life?
What started as a simple and “easy” game as a kid with few balls to juggle quickly ballooned to a point of overwhelm in adulthood…
Where you constantly feel “busy”, overwhelmed, stressed, out of control, and continue “dropping the ball” in different areas of your life…
Maybe you’re an anomaly that has it all figured out, but if you’re anything like me, this feeling will be far too familiar.
Life, however, does not need to be that hard or complicated.
The primary reason most people feel directionless, out of control, and like they are dropping the ball, is simply because they don’t know:1
What balls they are juggling
How many balls they are juggling
Which balls are most important to them right now
And today, I’d like to share a process I’ve found really useful in fixing that.
The big life “balls”
In life, there are 10 major balls you are responsible for juggling on a day-to-day basis:
Physical health
Mental health
Spirituality
Creativity
Relationships
Family
Travel
Fun
Finances
Work
You can split these off into smaller sub-buckets, but I believe these 10 are darn near all-encompassing.
The thing about these balls is that they are not all created equal.
Think about the difference between juggling a rubber ball vs a glass ball.
You drop a rubber ball and it’ll bounce back unharmed.
You drop a glass ball and it’ll shatter.
An example in this realm can be travel vs. family.
You drop the ball on travel and you miss a vacation. You drop the ball on family because you’re always distracted with work and other projects, and you may lose the people you love forever.
Different balls have different consequences, and you have to appreciate that.
Furthermore, those consequences will shift depending on the season of life you’re in.
Are you a single 22-year-old kid fresh out of college? If so, then the family ball isn’t as big or fragile yet. You have your parents and maybe some siblings, but no wife or kids to be responsible for.
Compare that to a 38-year-old father with a wife and 3 kids…the family ball is much larger and likely made of glass.
And then there are individual differences to consider.
Some people will care deeply about spirituality, while others won’t.
And that’s okay.
What is important is knowing which balls are most important to you right now, why they are important to you, and whether or not you are living in alignment with your core values and priorities.
Your task - rank, prioritize and get clear
If you feel busy, unfulfilled, stressed, or anxious in your life right now…
Or want to live a more intentional life where you are in total control and living on purpose…
Here’s what I want you to do:
1️⃣ FIRST - Rank the following in terms of priority right now.2
Physical health, mental health, spirituality, creativity, relationships, family, travel, fun, finances, and work.
2️⃣ SECOND - Write why the top 3 priorities are priorities for you.
This step is crucial because it means your priorities are truly yours and not someone else’s. If you can’t describe why it’s important to you, then reassess and start over.
Let me give you an example.
Physical health is ranked at the top of my list because I believe that without my health I am nothing. It is the foundation on which everything else is built.
If you’re familiar with the phrase “the legs feed the wolf”, then “my physical health feeds my life.”
My confidence, my productivity, my relationships, my happiness, the experiences I can have, and the work I can do…all stem from keeping my body in great shape and operating at a high level.
It is very literally the energy and life force that drives me forward.
3️⃣ THIRD - Audit yourself
Audit your current life and answer this question - Do I currently live in alignment with my values and priorities in the top three areas of life? If not, where am I most out of alignment?
For example…
Do you rank finances high but binge Netflix every night when you could be doing something creative to make more $$?
Do you rank creativity high but never block time for yourself to learn and create something new?
4️⃣ FOURTH - Assess the health of each
Assess the health of each category on a scale from 1 (bad) to 10 (best) and pay special attention to those that are prioritized high but have a low health score.
For example…
Do you rank physical health high but only score it at a 4 out of 10 because you’ve been putting it off and sacrificing it for other things?
Do you rank relationships high but haven’t reached out to grab coffee with a friend in months?
5️⃣ FIFTH - Set goals and install a personal effectiveness system
At this point, next steps are to set goals for each category and then install a personal effectiveness system that empowers you to stay organized, get shit done, and actually achieve those goals.
If you don’t have a system, you’ll quickly get thrown back into the harsh currents of life, pulled wherever society, your friends, family, and social media want you to go…
And your goals will remain pipedreams that never get accomplished.
Setting up a personal effectiveness system goes beyond the scope of this post, but if you’d be interested in a self-paced mini-course going into more depth on all of this, put your email here.
I’m not sure if I’ll make the course, but if enough people are interested it could be fun to do as a group.
Your $84,600 gift
Let’s say every morning at 12:01 AM $84,600 is deposited into your checking account.
But then every night at midnight your checking account goes to $0.
So, you get $84,600 to spend every day, but at the stroke of midnight, your account goes to $0.
I’m willing to bet you’d work your ass off to spend all $84,600 each day knowing that once the day is over that money will be gone forever.
Sure, you have more money coming into the account tomorrow, but whatever you don’t spend today is lost.
Well, it just so happens that you are gifted 84,600 seconds every day…
And my question to you is this - how are you living those 84,600 seconds?
Are you living them with intention and purpose or allowing them to pass you by?
My hope is that today’s post has helped you gain some clarity on what you want and why you want it, so you can make the most of your 84,600 gift.
Much love.
James
My projects (if you’re interested…)
🦍 The silverback training project – this is an exclusive 16-week training and nutrition coaching program for men that want to look better, feel better and perform better than ever before.
🤑 The wealthy fit pro – this is an exclusive 6-week coaching program for fitness professionals that want to get more clients and make an extra $1000-5000 per month online.
🏋️ Principles of strength and conditioning course – this is where I show you how to empower your own performance by teaching you to write training programs that get record results in record time for your physique, health, and performance.
💨 The oxygen course – this is a course for those brave souls that want to dive into the weeds and learn graduate-level respiratory, cardiovascular, and muscular physiology without the graduate school price tag.
Goal setting and having a personal effectiveness system in place to actually achieve those goals are also important but beyond the scope of this post. While I’m not sure if I’d do this, if you’re interested in a self-paced mini-course going into more depth on all of this, put your email here.
It’s important to note there are no right or wrong answers here. Just make sure you are ranking them based on what’s most important to YOU and not the outside influence of others.
I have to admit, the $ 84600 analogy does not work for me; I would only spend as much as needed (apart from a few financial investions for safety and buying a house), as I know that the next day will come + I don't need that much money for my happyness.
Apart from that, great article, as usual.
Wow, it's really difficult to prioritize those. I feel like I cannot place some over others because they are dependant on one another, they go hand in hand.