L. LaNoue

Anyone else feel like the volume of life has been turned up a few notches?

The challenges we face continue to intensify and spread further into our daily lives. In a world that demands more from us than ever before, prioritization isn’t just a productivity skill — it’s a survival tool, a spiritual practice, and a way to stay connected to ourselves, our purpose, and one another.

This is also the beginning of a conversation — a series about self-leadership, deep wellness, and decision-making in our hectic lives. Today, I begin with prioritization: not from a cold efficiency model, but from a place of embodied clarity and compassion.

As I write about prioritization, I feel it’s essential to name my social position. I’ve had the privilege of time and mentorship to closely consider major life decisions, plus the resources to take big risks — something many people can’t access amid the demands of survival.

My aim isn’t to offer more advice from a removed perch, but to bridge my lived experience with those who are navigating real, layered challenges. I’m not interested in self-help rhetoric that’s disconnected from our most pressing social needs. I’m interested in sharing practices that have helped me ground, discern, and heal — and in creating space where others can explore the same for themselves.

I also have an invitation for you at the end of this piece!

Leap of Faith

In 2015, I made the biggest decision of my life at the time — leaving a full-time job in state government to pursue project-based work, beginning with a seasonal job near Lake Michigan. After receiving my bachelor’s degree and successfully completing big projects in my role, I wanted to fully unplug and zero-in on what meant the most to me. Living with a close family friend in a treehouse next to the lakeshore was a dream come true. Yet this experience didn’t just happen — it was thoughtfully planned in alignment with my personal life assignment. 

For three years prior, I worked hard to be promoted three times while serving in the executive office of the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT). When I realized the third promotion — a reclassification — would only provide a small raise, I knew that the personal cost of staying outweighed the risk of pivoting. Being closer to the ground, the people, and the work that moves the needle in everyday life was calling.

This was no easy decision to make and I’m still grateful for what I learned at MDOT. From capacity building for a small team, to supporting the functions of an executive office, I realized the magnitude of how systems work. This experience also taught me how to discern what’s right for me. That was the beginning of a deeper kind of prioritization — one that’s more than just strategic, but also spiritual.

Present-Day Context

Today, we’re not just overwhelmed by tasks — we’re overwhelmed by the pressure to get it right without ever being shown how. I recently heard someone describe pressure reaching “a poisonous level” and I felt that both personally and in what I see unfolding in our relationships.

Too many of us are running on fumes, expected to show up with clarity even though no one could possibly know how to immediately navigate the complex challenges we face. That’s why prioritization matters. It’s how we walk in integrity, even when we can only see the next step ahead [1].

150 years ago, humans were expected to care for their basic needs and there was a relatively clear pathway for us to do so. Now there are countless choices to conceptualize and this exacts a toll on us, especially those with less of a safety net to recover from inevitable missteps.

Tuning In: A Framework for Prioritization

It’s hard to think clearly when life feels overwhelming. Yet when we pause, even briefly, we create space for discernment. We begin to open up new channels for positive change and momentum to build. Tuning in to what’s happening inside, where no one else can speak for us, allows us to tap into a reservoir of power that’s meant for us to become familiar with and own.

In order for our priorities to meet our deeper needs, they have to be shaped by our self-awareness. Especially for those who are marginalized in any capacity, prioritization has to focus on emotional capacity as much as planning processes.

Here are three ways I’ve improved my decision-making and prioritization:

1. Know Your Strengths

Inspired by the work of Felicia Hatcher & Gay Hendricks, unapologetically find and align with your zone of genius – the places in life where you flow [2]. Consider the following to begin to identify your greatest strengths that also energize you:

• What gives you energy?
  • Within the context of work/volunteering, are there any activities that make you come alive?
• What makes you feel drained?
  • In a workplace context, are there aspects of your essential duties that you may need additional supports for?
• What would it take to organize your life more around your strengths instead of your fears?
• What small step can you take today to signal that you are prioritizing what feels most expansive and energizing to you?

Knowing what anchors us before the storm comes is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.

2. Name Your Limitations Without Shame

Time, energy, resources, close relationships, and past experiences are all elements of our lives that can pose limitations. Yet limitations aren’t necessarily just a negative thing. Limitations are parameters — points of reference for us to be aware of. Yet simultaneously, they can serve as sources of ingenuity, motivation, and wisdom. 

“Necessity is the mother of invention.” — Plato

My parents often say this quote from Plato, and over the years, it’s taught me how to work around issues that arise in our lives. Bumping up against constraint after constraint causes frustration. How do you cope in those moments?

For me, unscrambling my energy by mindfully doing bilateral movements is the most supportive way I’ve found to process my impatience with limitations. Using the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) by tapping on acupressure points and naming what I am experiencing is a go-to resource and there is a playlist of tapping videos linked below [3].

3. Navigate Decision-Making with Self-Compassion

The more freedom we have, the more we’re called to examine what drives our choices. Simultaneously, past experiences can narrow our perception, giving an illusion that some options are unsafe, when the risk involved could actually serve us immensely. This is natural. Self-compassion helps us widen our lens, and courage can propel us to become open to opportunities.

At a high level, consider these questions when navigating decision-making:

• Do I have any urgent needs that impact my perception?
  • How can I account for these and take a step toward improvement?
• Who needs what by when?* 
• What’s the real cost of doing this now versus later?
• Am I acting from integrity, or from a need to prove something?

As we begin to make decisions and live into new worlds of both risk and reward, we don’t need to make every decision perfectly — we just need to move closer to what’s aligned with meeting our present needs.

* Tasks with dependencies are typically my first consideration for decision-making. After identifying who needs what, by when — I consider whether there may be any back-and-forth communication in completing the task(s). If so, I prepare my schedule with this in mind.

Resources

• [1] Blogs from Martha Beck, author of The Way of Integrity
• [2] Zone of Genius: Felicia Hatcher & Gay Hendricks’ work
• [3] Tapping / Bilateral Movement – YouTube Playlist
• Decision-Making Tools
  • AREA Method by Cheryl Einhorn
  • Eisenhower Matrix by Asana