Priority Discipline

About a dozen years ago, my friend Tina Schermer Sellers gave language to something I had been slowly learning in my own life. Tina is a therapist, educator, author, and professor emerita

whose work has helped people heal shame and cultivate deeper intimacy. She called the idea Priority Discipline.

Priority Discipline is the intention to craft, on a daily basis, the life you most value.

That sentence has stayed with me because it tells the truth. Whether we mean to or not, each of us is crafting a life. We craft it with our calendars, our attention, our habits, our relationships, our phones, our spending, our rest, our “yes”s, and our “no”s. The question is not whether we are building a life. The question is whether we are building the life we actually want.

For the past ten years, I have been trying to live with this question in front of me: What life am I crafting today? Not someday. Not when things slow down. Not when the next season begins. Today.

My calendar often tells the truth before my words do. I can say I value prayer, friendship, rest, presence, and emotional health, but my time may tell a different story. Priority Discipline invites me to close the gap between what I say I value and what I actually practice.

When I look at the life of Jesus, I notice a repeatable rhythm. He moved with purpose but not hurry. He gave Himself fully to people, but He also withdrew. He spoke to crowds but invested deeply in a few. He taught in public spaces but also shared meals, walked roads, asked questions, and paid attention.

There is a rhythm there worth borrowing: solitude with God, a small circle of trusted friends, and a table shared with others.

This rhythm is not complicated, but it does require intention. Without intention, life fills itself. The urgent crowds out the important. Noise replaces reflection. Activity replaces connection. And over time, we can wake up inside a life we never consciously chose.

After a decade of practicing Priority Discipline, I can say with gratitude that there is fruit. It does not always arrive quickly, and it rarely looks dramatic in the moment. It grows slowly through repeated choices, ordinary rhythms, honest reflection, and small acts of alignment. But over time, those choices shape a life. They shape attention. They shape relationships. They shape peace. They shape the kind of man I am becoming.

For me, Priority Discipline is no longer just an idea I admire. It is a way of life I am choosing. It has meant making room for solitude before the calendar fills with noise. It has meant sending the text (or not sending the text), scheduling the meal, taking the walk, turning off the phone, and sitting quietly long enough to remember that I am not merely a machine for getting things done. I am a soul. I am a friend. I am beloved.

Maybe this is part of what it means to follow Jesus in ordinary life. Not simply believing certain things, but arranging our days around what is most true. Not deferring connection, prayer, rest, and friendship to some future version of life, but giving them a place today.

So perhaps the question is simple: What life are you crafting, and what small choice could help you live it today?

-Shawn