Why you need to know your top-3 priorities each day

I've been asked recently by many new clients about why I ask for their top-3 priorities each day. Here are the three main reasons. I figured I would share this with all clients, since you may have also wondered about this. We're trying to create a virtuous cycle of momentum and daily forward progress with your top-3. Here's how and why we do that:

First, we know, clarity is necessary to perform at your peak.

So, it's critical to be clear about what you want to achieve with your time and energy. By determining your top-3 priorities, you create clarity for yourself.

Second, we recognize your motivation is earned each day.

By taking action on your top-3 priorities, you create motivation for yourself. Contrary to what most people believe, motivation is created by taking action. You do not feel motivated and then act. You act, and then your motivation follows. To prove this. Consider a time you didn't want to go for a run, but regardless of that feeling, you fought through and started running anyway. And then 20 minutes into the run, you feel great, almost euphoric, and you think to yourself, "I can't believe I almost didn't run today; this has been the best part of my day." That's an example of motivation following action. If you waited around to feel like running, you would have NEVER started the run, the motivation to run followed running.

This works similarly to working on any challenging task or activity. If you can begin to trust your motivation to follow after you start a task or activity, you'll have a massive advantage for the rest of your life. By completing your top priorities each day, you teach yourself how taking action creates motivation. And you learn it's a process that you can rely on.

Lastly, we know success creates more success.

After setting your top-3 priorities and taking action on them day-after-day, you will start feeling like you are making progress. Once you feel like you're progressing - momentum starts to build. Because you've begun to prove to yourself that you can take action and accomplish whatever you want each day. Even if the priority is a seemingly small task, this cycle of (clarity-taking action-creating motivation for yourself-accomplishing the priority) still creates incremental progress (that you recognize as success).

This success leads to more self-confidence and a belief that you can execute on whatever you choose. And when you realize that, you can accomplish just about anything you want. That's why I like to see your top-3 priorities each morning. And that's how setting priorities has helped so many of my clients achieve incredible success. Because over time, when you follow the process (and you trust yourself enough to start on and do the work) you create an unstoppable cycle of executing day-after-day-after-day. And that daily execution adds up. And that builds your self-confidence to take more action - and set bigger goals for yourself. And those bigger goals lead to more focused needle-moving priorities each day, which leads to more success for you. And that's how it works. That's why I love to see your top-3 every morning—that's why I never want to start my day without knowing my top-3.

It's not always easy, it's not always fun.

But the process works if you're willing to put in the work.

Let me know if you have any specific questions or concerns.

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