This phrase takes me back nearly 25 years to my first butt-kicking by a businessman with 40 years of experience on me. Nathan Fouch (father of one of SEP’s founders, Mike Fouch) was very blunt in saying that I needed to take better care of myself. It was great advice. Guess what I said? “I don’t have time.”
He pointed his finger at me, leaned in, and looked me right in the eye, “Time is not something you HAVE. It is something you MAKE.”
He was right of course. We all have the same number of hours in a day. It comes down to the choices we make.
“I don’t have time” translates to “that isn’t as important” as other activities that currently get my time.
The challenge is around prioritizing, sometimes saying “no” to good things in order to strive for balance. This we all know.
If we really do make time for the things most important to us when we are intentional, we need to make sure we are seeing things properly. Often the stuff that comes at us doesn’t get filtered and this age of connectivity provides so many opportunities to distract us from what is really important.
Go back and look at what you say is important to you. Make a list. Prioritize it. Now look at where your time is going. There are things we must do like eating, working and sleeping. Where does the time go that you can control? Does everything/everyone get some time? If not, “what gets scheduled gets done” and get out the calendar.
The BIG GOAL? Balance.
