“One day, out of nowhere, you realize you don’t know who you are, and none of the cards in your wallet provide the slightest clue to your real identity.” – Sam Keen

There are times in life when we feel confused and disoriented. Just like a little child, who has been carried away by an interesting game and has not noticed how far away he has got from his house. He stands in the middle of the street and realizes that he has never been here before. It is getting dark and the world no longer seems a friendly place. Which way is home?! Where am I?!

Similar, we get so carried away by the game of wealth and power that we often lose sight of thing that truly matter in our life. We go through life believing that we will have plenty of time ahead of us to make things right with our family members, to start taking care of our health, to figure out what it is that we want to do or to travel to the places we always dreamed of visiting. And we postpone doing these things until the next day… next month… next year… because we are too busy making money, helping our kids do their homework, or getting ready for the next meeting.

I have a trick question for you!

Have you ever heard of a person, who on their deathbed said, “I wish I had more money” or “I wish I had spent more time in the office.”? I haven’t. Who cares about that stuff when you just have a little bit of time left?

When you look at your life from this perspective, you are able to see more clearly which aspects of your life truly matter and which were simply ‘shiny objects’ that promised happiness and satisfaction, but turn out to be worthless trifles.

Whether you feel confused about which goals to pursue or have no doubts that you are on the right track; whether you lack focus or motivation; whether you have just graduated from college or about to retire, try the following experiment:

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Jonathan Mead writes about personal growth and effectiveness at Illunimated Mind. He’s also a regular guest writer at Zenhabits and the autor of Reclaim Your Dreams. In this interview Jonathan reveals some tips about creating clear intentions and setting priorities. Enjoy!

I found my passion by simply following my natural curiosity. I listened to what I was drawn to learn and hungry to know more about. I found that I was drawn to certain things, and not drawn to others, I just followed what I was naturally drawn to. For those that don’t feel this pull so strongly in their lives, I suggest just trying lots of things. Be willing to give up what you don’t like, and do more of what you do like. Don’t get too attached in the beginning and feel like you have to follow through with everything you try. Just try lots of stuff and see what sticks.

I’m not too big on goal setting, but I am big on creating clear intentions and defining a direction. To ensure that I am constantly moving in the direction I want to, I’ve found that a couple of things have helped me a lot. One is creating an intention board. I have a cork board in my office where I print out my most important intentions (or goals, if you’d like to use that word) and put them up on the board. I try to stick to no more than eight intentions at a time. Some of mine might be “I’m launching my next best-selling product” or “I am extremely focused.” Whatever is most important to me, I put it up. I’ll review and change these every three months or so. (more…)