Is your Urgency Meter stuck on “high?”
What’s truly urgent in your life right now?
For a lot of us, our urgency meter is stuck on “high” for just about everything.
You know that feeling, right? This project has to be done NOW. (So does that other project.) That email you sent to your team requires a response YESTERDAY. (As do the other 5 you just sent.) It’s urgent that you buy a birthday card for your nephew STAT. It’s also urgent that the car inspection is done TODAY.
Add to that, you might be pretty certain there are a lot of things out there that — once you know what they are — will all be equally important and urgent.
But is this accurate? Are all of these items truly urgent? Or, is it possible that your urgency meter is broken?
I got a glimpse of this within myself the other day when I sauntered over to my local spot to pick up my traditional Sunday brunch order. When I arrived, I discovered that I had accidentally ordered my treat from this spot’s other location, about a 15 minute walk away. Whoops.
And suddenly that avocado toast felt URGENT.
My alert system went to 10, my heart rate picked up, and I hustled out the door with a sense of being LATE. 😳
It was only after I had worked up a sweat speed walking toward the other location did I start to question this response. What was going on? It was a gorgeous day, I had nothing on the calendar, and I was stressed out and hurrying to get … avocado toast????
This just didn’t make sense.
My urgency meter was malfunctioning. And if it went haywire over avocado toast, just imagine all the other places in my life where I feel a sense of urgency — and it’s simply not accurate.
▶ This matters: When we treat everything as equally urgent, we waste huge amounts of energy, we lose sight of our highest priorities, and we miss out on the joy and pleasure of savoring all those moments in life when we don’t actually need to rush.
INVITATION TO REFLECT: What about you? Do you have awareness about how much urgency you experience every day? If it’s a lot, try slowing yourself down to ask, “is this really, truly urgent?” Put it on a scale of 1-10. (And if everything is a 10, try again!)