Seems like a simple question, right?
What’s important to you?
Answer it and you’ll have a clear path of where to go and what to do. You’ll be able to discern exactly wat you want and will have no question on what you need to do to attain it. You will have achieved your goal, won the prize, and you can live happily ever after as the victor.
Unfortunately, things are rarely that simple.
People tend to think of their priorities as a short list of “must-dos.” But, what happens when you have multiple priorities, ambitions, goals, dreams?
What about when you have other obligations and responsibilities that take up a large chunk of your time? How do you decide what priority is most important?
I tend to allow myself to be overloaded with “real world” or “adult” responsibilities. I have become a master of putting what I’m passionate about on a back burner in favor of tacking things that need to be done or to do additional work for the job that’s paying me. I’ve done it since my first real job after high school. I used to always have a notebook with me to write things down. Stories, random quotes, ideas, poems, characters; I never had a long time before I was pulling it out to jot something down. When I started working at an insurance office downtown, I distinctly remember telling myself I had to get the work done first. “I can write later. I’ll remember this.” I rarely did.
Pushing creative hobbies off became habit and eventually I stopped writing creatively altogether. I still did a great deal of technical writing in the form of resumes, internal documents, and I would forever be involved in producing training materials for any position I worked in, but that isn’t the same as creating a world and its inhabitants. There are no dragons in the office. (But what if there were….)
“I have opted to completely cut out any over time or the like in lieu of doing school work. I mean, were doing this for a reason, right?”
Logan Morris, Full Sail student.
I was talking to a friend last week about the workload for Full Sail. He’s in the undergrad Game Design program and we are both struggling to balance work and school. He’s cut off any overtime from work to put his studies first, which I really commend. There have been plenty of days in this first month I’ve wished I was still in a boring desk job I could leave at the office. It’s just not that easy with teaching, especially during a pandemic. Remote is three times harder and missing the fun interactions of the classroom. Ultimately though, he is right.
I’m in this program for a reason. The Mastery course has been more of a self-realization than I ever thought it would be. It’s finally made me accept that I can’t keep putting creativity off until later. When I do, I lose something of myself.
If my ultimate goal is to blend my teaching and my writing together, I cannot keep cutting out the writing. Or letting my job push into my study time. I’ve made a schedule to give time for everything and I need to follow it better.
This year both this program and my writing are my priorities. If I want to make the changes I do, they have to be.
And I’m feeling really good about that.
References
Martinez, Bernadette. (2020, September 26). What’s Important to You?. [Image].
Scearce, Jane. (n.d.). 29 motivational and inspirational picture quotes. Life Hack. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/30-motivational-and-inspirational-picture-quotes.html
Originally published as part of the Full Sail Mastery Journal.
