Time is a commodity we cannot replace.Very recently I realized how much I was allowing others to waste my time. I know how valuable time is and I got so tired of allowing others to waste my time that I finally decided to do something about it.
Change Your Mind - Change Your Life
Learning how to recognize how I was allowing my time to be wasted has been a journey of continuous learning. As I have grown and changed I recognize more and more things that I do are a waste of my time. Years ago I used to be so proud of how much I got done. Yet, many of my activities were just busy work, not something that was allowing me to learn and grow as a person. Everyone will have different things that they do that are "busy work". One of my biggest time wasters was TV. I had always thought it was my husband who was the big TV watcher then I realized that I used him as an excuse. When I was feeling lazy or annoyed, if he was watching TV I would simply sit down and watch it with him. After all "if he can, so can I". Then I realized it was up to me, and only me to decide what was important in my life.
I had to decide what I wanted, what was my goal for my life. Once that came into focus for me it became much easier to recognize when I was wasting my own time or allowing others to waste it for me. I had to ask myself "what do I want my future to look like?", then take the action that would set me on the path to that future.There have been times where I stop and ask myself "is this activity something that will assist me in achieving my goal?" If the answer is "no" then do I really want to do it? I have found that to be very useful in keeping myself on track.
This has made me realize that some of my own habits are my time wasters. My experience has been that the older we are the more our habits are ingrained. In order to change these ingrained habits the more focused we must be on the change. I have come to understand that the younger we start on this journey the shorter it will be. However it is NEVER too late to start, no one knows how long they are going to be here on this earth.
Now I ask myself "am I using my time in order to make my own way prosperous or am I cursing my own path?" I believe that watching TV was cursing my path, it was contributing nothing to my life. How we spend our time is always our own choice. I had a conversation recently with a friend who said that she did not have a choice in how she spent her time. Her brother was very sick and she had to spend time with him. When I disagreed with her that she still had a choice she was quite upset with me. However when I explained what I meant she agreed. She loves her brother dearly, wants to spend time with him and assist him anywhere she can. That is her choice to support her brother, she said yes, she would rather spend time with him right now than anything else. I have another friend whose sister was sick many years ago, they did not get along well. Her choice was not to spend time with her sick sister. It is always our choice how we spend our time. In this example the decision of where to spend the time was based on the relationship.
Its time to take action: Write down a list of what you do in a day. Then write down the items from the list that are important to you. This will allow you to recognize how you spend your time and provide you with the information you need in order to make the decision of how to spend your time an informed one.
Scheduling our time is a success habit. Do you believe you would you be able to just "drop in" on Oprah or Donald Trump? I learned from my strategic business coach, John Di Lemme, just how important a planner/scheduler is! As much as we want to believe we will remember everything, we don't. We are, after all, human. We are bombarded with so much information every second of our lives we will never remember everything. Today I even write down the small details in my "million dollar planner" such as remember to pick up the dry cleaning. The beauty of using the planner this way is it frees up space in my brain.
I wrote it down, we don't need to remember anymore. We can now concentrate our time on something else, perhaps something that will take us down the prosperous path.
Are you willing to leave your comfort zone in order to have more time in your life? Are you struggling in the wrong place? Are you tired of being tired? I know that for me some of that "tired" came from attempting to hold too many things in my brain. Buying that planner and putting it to use in your life is a success habit. You can be as scheduled as you like. I have found that the more scheduled I am the more time I have and then the more scheduled I become. Gives me a wonderful feeling to be caught up in a great empowering circle rather than the vicious negative ones I used to be in.
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Carla McNeil is currently a Human Resources Consultant in the Federal Government of Canada.
About 4 years ago she realized that there was no way she was going to be able to achieve the life of her dreams by working for the Federal Government or anywhere in corporate Canada. Having spent 20+ years in the hospitality industry she realized that if she continued doing what she was doing she would retire dead or dead broke just like 97% of the population.
Carla has now discovered the beauty of a home based business. She is building a team of champions who want to make a difference in this world and live the life they were meant to live. Carla assists, coaches and mentors her team to get out of the “corporate slave camp” and do;
1) What they Want
2) When They Want
3) With Whom They Want
Always on the lookout for new team members - Are You Next?