For Harvard Business Review.
by Jackie Coleman and John Coleman
Summary: Extreme life events can be stressful — and lead to confusion as to where to focus your priorities.
Extreme life events can be stressful — and lead to confusion as to where to focus your priorities. Whether it’s changing jobs, taking care of a sick parent, relocating, or facing a diagnosis, disruptions in life can make it difficult to maintain moment-by-moment focus and well-being, much less think months or years in the future. Daily or weekly habits aligned with your long-term goals can keep you on track even when it’s hard to think ahead, and they can add stability in an otherwise unsteady time. These habits, important at any time, are essential in our busiest and most chaotic periods. So what do these habits look like? The first step in maintaining regular habits is to articulate and track them. When setting habits, we’ve found the most critical are clustered in four key areas: personal reflection, professional reflection, building and maintaining relationships, and physical and mental health.
Eight months ago, we welcomed our third child. In the past, we’ve written about how to navigate careers, stress, and even “annual planning.” You’d think we’d be prepared for wonderful but disruptive life events like these, but as Mike Tyson famously quipped, “Everyone has plan until they get punched in the mouth.”
The past year has been a time of radical prioritization for us. We’re constantly optimizing — identifying our most essential priorities and activities while reluctantly and painfully cutting things that are important but not urgent.
Maybe you’re facing a life event that forces this type of radical prioritization. Whether it’s changing jobs, taking care of a sick parent, relocating, or facing a diagnosis, disruptions in life can make it hard to maintain moment-by-moment focus and well-being, much less think months or years in the future. Long-term goals remain important. But in the fog of life’s most intense moments, long-term focus can be hard.
