So 2020 was…a year. It took so much from us, and the only way I’ve found to cope is by searching for lessons I can use to do better in 2021 (although it’s not off to the best start either).
One such lesson is “name what matters.” This is a concept from Kendra Adachi’s book The Lazy Genius. If you know what matters to you (not your parents, or your Instagram followers, or even what you think “should” matter), the theory is you’ll be able to make decisions that align with your values and help you accomplish the things you’re pursuing.
Theory in practice
I first heard “name what matters” last fall, just as things were gearing up for the holiday season. I agonized over Thanksgiving and Christmas plans, torn between wanting to see my family and keeping them as safe as possible.
So my husband and I had a conversation to decide what mattered. In the end it came down to “making sure our family stays healthy.” Once we named what mattered, it made it simple to answer the questions of how/whether we would see people.
Note that I didn’t say easy. Not visiting my childhood home for Thanksgiving sucked because it’s tradition and also because my parents will be selling it soon; not visiting my grandparents for Christmas sucked because I only have so many holidays left with them; not seeing my husband’s family sucked because we didn’t get to see in-laws or our niece and nephew. But we knew that the only way we could stick to our “what matters” and make 100% sure that we didn’t get anyone sick would be to stay home.
Additionally, when we did end up being able to have Thanksgiving with my parents in our new home, my focus on keeping people safe (and making sure the food was edible) meant that everything else I found myself worrying about — like whether I should clean the baseboards — simply…didn’t matter. And the holiday was less stressful and more enjoyable because of it.
What about 2021?
I had been noodling over incorporating this concept into more aspects of my life when Adachi’s podcast episode Naming What Matters in 2021 popped up in my feed.
In that episode she asked listeners to answer three questions:
- What could matter?
- What does matter?
- What matters most?
The idea is to use question one to generate a list, then questions two and three to narrow down that list to the most important things. Not the things that “should” matter just because you think they should, or because that Instagram influencer said it should, but because it matters to you.
Adachi mentions that you can make a simple list and pick just a single thing that matters most, or you can sort by category and pick the most important thing from each. Categories make the most sense to my brain, so that’s what I did.
What does matter?
First, a brain dump.
| Category | Ideas |
| Relationships (family, friends, partner) |
|
| Health (mental, physical, spiritual) |
|
| Career (vocation) |
|
| Personal enjoyment (hobbies, recreation) |
|
| Responsibilities (home, finances, etc.) |
|
What does matter?
Next, crossing off stuff that does not matter.
This is a harder step, because all of these do actually matter to me. But for the sake of completing the exercise, I’ll cross off the stuff that’s less important.
| Category | Ideas |
| Relationships (family, friends, partner) |
|
| Health (mental, physical, spiritual) |
|
| Career (vocation) |
|
| Personal enjoyment (hobbies, recreation) |
|
| Responsibilities (home, finances, etc.) |
|
What matters most?
Intuitively I feel like the goal is to choose just one thing from each category — but in some cases for me that’s impossible. Maybe try primary and secondary goals?
| Category | Ideas |
| Relationships (family, friends, partner) |
|
| Health (mental, physical, spiritual) |
|
| Career (vocation) |
|
| Personal enjoyment (hobbies, recreation) |
|
| Responsibilities (home, finances, etc.) |
|
This feels pretty good. I’ve named what matters so I know what to do/say when…
- I have competing tasks at work – “What has the biggest impact on my team/frontline staff?”
- Book club chooses something I’m not super interested in – “This will help me read outside my comfort zone.”
- I stumble across something I’d like to buy, but it’s out of our budget – “If I spend this now, will I have enough to meet my savings goals?”
What matters vs. goals
Is “what matters” the same as “goals”? I’m not sure. They’re definitely related — for example, “Putting funds in IRA” might be a goal that rolls up into something like “Planning for the future” as the what matters piece.
But at the same time I don’t really like that, because “Planning for the future” is incredibly generic, and almost anything I do could fall into that bucket.
Maybe it’s the “what matters” that rolls up into an even bigger bucket, like “Values.” So “Reading widely and not always inside my comfort zone” might become, “Keeping an open mind and being willing to listen.”
| Category | Value | Goals |
| Relationships | Sustaining strong relationships. |
|
| Health | Taking care of my body and mind. |
|
| Career | Positive impact, recognition, and growth. |
|
| Personal enjoyment | Keeping an open mind and being willing to listen. |
|
| Responsibilities | Doing my financial best for my family and future. |
|
I really like this, because it gives me flexibility to change up the exact thing that matters while keeping things aligned with my values and the bigger picture I want to accomplish this year.
Now to make this pretty, print it out, and make sure I can see it every day.
What matters to you in 2021?
Photo by Riccardo Annandale on Unsplash
