If you’ve ever had days that just seem to get away from you because you just couldn’t find the time, then you will know that it’s easy to get distracted.
Being able to get your time back and live how you want to live is becoming more and more important and it can be done with a few simple, yet important steps.
Learn how to say no.
If you say yes to something that you don’t really want to do, you’re saying no to the things you could be doing with that time. You end up regretting it and making yourself feel bad for saying yes to begin with.
Being able to say no in a compassionate way will mean you won’t feel bad about turning it down, while at the same time, giving you the chance to really commit to the things you’re already doing. Whether you say that you can’t do it right now but arrange to talk again in the future or you say it’s not a good fit for me.
These can make all the difference to the level of pressure you feel around fulfilling the promises you make to others, even when they take away from the promises you’ve already made to others and yourself.
Prioritize.
When you say that you can’t do something due to not having the time, sometimes it’s because you’re spending more time on less important things. You would be better looking at how you’re currently spending your time and adjusting that. We only have so many hours in a day and how we spend those hours determines how we feel at the end of the day.
It’s not an exact science, but the sense of fulfillment you feel when you make progress on something that important to you is almost unrivaled. Spending hours on something that doesn’t excite you is a recipe for struggling to find meaning and purpose in your life — even if you could be doing those things.
Look after your energy.
The amount of time I’ve personally saved by working on increasing my energy levels has been hours every week. Being able to do more with your hours because you’re more energized can make all the difference to not only how much you do, but the quality of output.
Things like nutrition, exercise, sleep, meditation, and self-care — like massages — can make all the difference in maintaining yourself physically as well as mentally. You may be spending time doing these things but you end up easily making the time back, and more importantly, as you can easily get more done in less time.
Discipline breeds freedom.
Being disciplined and “strict with yourself” prevents you from going slow just because you can. If you give yourself the gift of being disciplined, it frees you up mentally to be able to think about other things.
Freedom can be a feeling as well as being on paper; and something as small as, “I’ll spend thirty minutes on this” and set a timer, can mean the world of difference rather than letting it extend to an hour and beyond, which inevitably crosses over into other things.
The freedom to just “be,” without worry, with a sense of peace because everything that needs to be done. Improving yourself, working on your priorities, and having the discipline to be able to switch off from time to time… is the ultimate freedom.
It takes work, it takes being proactive and not waiting for things to break before you improve the system you have; but it is possible.
Are you experiencing freedom?
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Photo Credit: @coopery on Unsplash
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