You Can’t Prioritize Two Things

• • “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other…” - Matthew 6:24 “I’m trying to get back into running,” I’ve told several of my friends… several times, over the course of the last, oh, six months or so. Each of these times, I tried to set up this “perfect” schedule of how many days a week I would run and how many miles I would run each time. Care to guess what happened? It would rain one day, or I wouldn’t feel sufficiently recovered from my lift the previous day, or I would simply hit snooze too many times and run out of time in the morning. Inevitably, I wouldn’t perfectly execute more than a week or two of my idealized schedule, and I’d decide I’m just not built to run anymore. You see, I used to be a consistent runner. I pretty well stuck to a consistent 4-5 days a week, several miles a day type of schedule. Whether I was traveling, waking up early, staying out late… I wouldn’t miss my run. It was THE priority when it came to my physical health. (If you’ve been following The Next Step for awhile, you probably know this—lessons I learned while running are where the whole concept came from.) Then, gradually, lifting became my priority. There was a short period of time in college where I did both, but even then, one would always sacrifice for the other: my runs became shorter, less frequent, and simply not as important to me. What happened to me? Why can’t I seem to get back in gear and start running again? Am I just lazy or unmotivated now? Or is there something deeper going on here? Maybe you’ve found yourself in a similar situation, wondering why you’re struggling to add something else to your routine. Share I’m reminded of the concept of serving two masters. I think this is profound because it’s not always obvious: it can appear as though you can prioritize two things at the same time, until you get pressed enough to realize one has to win over the other. This is where I’ve come to realize I’m at with powerlifting and running; no matter how much I want to run consistently again, I will always put lifting first, unless I choose to re-structure my priority again. For now, for me, lifting is—and I want it to be—the most important way to take care of and challenge my body. That doesn’t mean I can’t run; I’ve found I really enjoy a nice easy mile or two once or twice a week, when it serves my routine. But, trying to make it one more thing I have to do on a certain schedule is creating a ripe opportunity for physical burnout. We can see this concept all over the place once we start looking for it. Take a popular topic like work-life balance: how often do we say things like “family comes first,” yet, when faced with a decision to stay late at work rather than be there for an important family event, they let work take precedence? Do we say we prioritize our faith, but when we look at our budget or how we allocate our finances, we don’t see that reflected? Maybe we talk about how we’re working on lowering our screen time, but we have no structures or practices in place to help us put down our phones. I’m not advocating for a robotic way of living our lives, where we make the same decision every time and fail to have a healthy balance. No, I’m challenging us to think more deeply about our values, so when we are faced with those moments which test our values, we actually know what to do. Not every moment is a value-testing one: some days we can give our best to work and our best at home, some days we can lift and run, and some days we can buy ourselves a coffee we don’t need and be generous to someone else. But, for the days we are forced to choose, which path do we take? Is it the path we tell everyone we would take? Is it the one we want our best self to take? I’m willing to admit this isn’t an easy issue to tackle. Since the beginning of this writing project, I’ve emphasized the value of nuance, of living in the gray, and of accepting the fact that two things can be true at once. I still believe those things are important. I also believe there are times when we are called to take a definitive stance, to decidedly choose one thing at the expense of another. The better we understand our own values, the simpler—although, not necessarily easier—it is to make those decisions. Whether you’re choosing to prioritize lifting or running, or something with higher stakes like a demanding job or time with your family, I hope you’ll take a moment to remember the type of person you’re aiming to be. Which would they choose? Journal Prompt of the WeekWhat is your highest value? Does your life look like it? Leave a comment