I am in the middle of facilitating 7 Habits of Highly Effective People for leaders within our organization. This doesn’t mean much to you, but for the Hurst household, it means one thing…mom (that’s me) is going to be on a 7 Habits high for the week. I confess-I love facilitating this workshop more than any other because it allows me and every other individual in the room to take a moment…or two days…to walk away from the chaos of our daily work lives and talk about ourselves. That doesn’t make us selfish. In fact, I think it’s healthy for adults to take time to reflect on their overall purpose and determine whether their actions reflect what matters most to them. Otherwise, we could wake up one morning and find that we’re heading in the wrong direction.

Who wouldn’t love taking that kind of time out to increase overall effectiveness? Well, lots of people. It can be uncomfortable sitting in a room for two days with a varied group of individuals across the organization when your daily tasks involves working with emotionally troubled children and youth. While the chaos and potential crisis can be exhausting, it can be almost preferable to the inertia that happens from sitting in a room all day.

There’s also great discomfort in writing out your mission statement and looking at the legacy you want to leave and reconciling it with the life you’re currently living. I see it in every group. There’s a certain discontent that stems from questioning whether you’re fulfilling your purpose in life. It’s uncomfortable admitting that we choose to behave badly at times, which negatively impacts our relationships. Other people don’t make us mad. We choose to be angry.

I know because these are all the things that caused me discomfort when I went through the workshop myself. I can certainly share in the experience even though I’m on the other side of it now. But I would tell them all-and I did tell them all-it should give us tremendous comfort in knowing that we have the ability to choose our response to every given situation. That means I get a do over every single day of my life! That’s tremendously exciting.

I had all of this going on in my mind when I picked up Lexi, my five-year-old. I was just reflecting out loud about 7 Habits. I pondered why grown-ups are often so reactive when we know that pausing to think before we respond is more effective. I asked why we so often choose not to put the most important task and relationships ahead of urgent matters.

Lexi’s response?

“Mommy, don’t grown-ups know that being proactive when people are mean to you is the best decision. If someone bullied me at school is it right to bully them back? No, that just makes you just as mean. You can just choose to walk away and tell a teacher. Putting first things first is a Hurst rule. Sometimes I want to do fun things instead of doing my responsibilities, but what would happen if grown-ups did that? Parents might decide not to do the important things, like feeding their children. And you know what happens when you don’t feed your children? They die. That’s why you do the important things first, then the fun things.”

Preach it, sister! I really couldn’t say it better myself. You wanna come teach the class with me?

Why do we focus so much on urgent, unimportant matters everyday?