Prioritizing Purpose: The Essential Role of Coaches in Complex Decision Frameworks

Navigating life’s choices is often like choosing between chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla ice cream. That was the challenge our grandparents faced when selecting ice cream at the local market. Yet, today, we’re confronted with an entire wall of options — familiar, delicious, unusual, and compelling in their own ways. The inundation of flavors leaves us struggling to decide. And even when we make a choice, there is still a voice in the back of our heads asking, what would it look like if we chose something else instead?

Trading ice cream for career prospects, relationships, or even how to spend the rare empty Sunday afternoon; from overarching visions to day-to-day minutiae, we live in indecisive times. At best, this leaves us wondering and lacking in clarity, and at worst, it saps away all motivation.

Termed “paralysis by analysis,” this conundrum boils down to a question of priorities — what matters most to us? This article aims to delve into the challenges of decision-making, tailored specifically to help coaches guide their clients through the complexity of choice. To assist clients in addressing this challenge, I recommend an exercise shared by none other than Warren Buffet.

Write Down Your Top 25 Life Priorities

The highlight reels — everything you could ever want to do or accomplish belongs on this list. If your list exceeds twenty-five or falls short, keep making adjustments until you have reached that number.

Odds are, the items on this list are what fill up your day to a greater or lesser extent. If none of them do, that’s telling in its own regard that a reshuffling is in order. But assuming they all do fill your day, we’ll proceed with the most challenging part of this exercise.

Narrow the List to Your Top 5 Priorities

We are so busy each day because we want to juggle everything. What makes life so hard is our need to evaluate the difference between what’s important and what’s more important. Discarding the less important is easy. Choosing the marginally better option is much more challenging.

Once the five items were selected, Buffet asked his mentee, “What do you think you should do, knowing this information of the two categories?”

“I’ll spend most of my time on the top five and the rest of my time on the other twenty.”

“No,” Buffet answered. “You need to spend every moment you can on the top five, then cut out the rest.” Those other twenty are no longer your goals. Buffet’s approach involves dedicating every available moment to the top five priorities, dismissing the rest as obstacles that will keep you from your dreams.

Ruthless Prioritization

We are finite creatures on a finite timeline. We can’t fit everything in, so we must be ruthless about what receives our time and attention. Work out what matters most, then cut the rest away. Taking a ruthless approach will ultimately bring about the life you want on the most basic and primal level.

What follows such a difficult choice and process is far easier. Once the underlying structure is in place, all that is left is to commit. To choose based on our newly understood priorities and march forward. Select our ice cream from the shelf, then enjoy it. Because if we gaze down the aisle and wonder about the other options, not only are we losing valuable time, but we also miss out on the joy of what we have in our hands.

Know yourself, know your goals, then let go of the rest and run full speed ahead. From the simplicity of our new status quo, we can attain true mastery.