The Question of Time

So often I hear people say, “I don’t have the time”.  They could be referring to completing a deadline, taking a vacation, or reaching some life goal they set 10 years ago.  This is a trap that I fall into on occasion and is very frustrating as it makes me feel powerless.  But therein lies the key, it's not that I am actually powerless to change my situation but that I let myself be controlled by other people or forces.

In our lives, the worst excuse we can give for not getting something done is a lack of time.  All we have in life is time and what I choose to do with it is 100% up to me.  I attended a leadership workshop at First American and it was mentioned that a lack of time is not a hurdle to completing your goals.  The reason for this is that we make time for things we care about.  The speaker went on to explain that if you are not doing the things you want to do, you must not want to do them more than the things you ARE doing.

As an example, I have been wanting to start reading leadership/mgmt. books again for about a year and a half.  I have told my friends and family about my desire to sit down and do this, but have not been success in finding the time.  This was because I have to be at work early in the morning, I have lots of meetings, I need to be present for my family, and frankly, I just preferred reading sci-fi books when I had the time.  I am happy and proud to say that as of today I have finished what will be the first in a long line of leadership / mgmt. books. I did this by making the conscious decision that I control my time and began carving out the first 30 minutes of work to read.  Reading these types of books at work just makes sense.  The content is in line with my job and the things I learn can be used to better lead my team.  As such, once my manager found out about what I was doing, he was very supportive of the choice I made.

The important thing to note is that we only have so many hours in a day, days in a year, and years in our lifetime.  We can either let someone else dictate what our time will be used for, or we can do it ourselves.  My example provided above has been an invigorating and liberating experience.  I since have been encouraging other people to make the time for the things that are important in their lives.  Just remember that there is always time to do what you want, you just have to want it enough to choose to do it.