Monday, May 7, 2012

Taking Time For Yourself


Not everyone is born equal. Some people start their life with more money, better health, more opportunities and more love. But the one thing that absolutely everybody has the same amount of is time. There are 24 hours in a day, no matter what.

So where does all of that time go for you? Let’s say you sleep for 8 hours a day and work for 8 hours a day, that adds up to 16 and you have 8 left. Showering, eating and driving probably takes up about 2 more. Maybe you go to the gym, there’s another hour. You might have a husband, wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, maybe even kids too so there’s the rest of your night. And if you’re single you probably have some sort of hobby that keeps you busy like playing an instrument or a sport. Happy hour after work with friends can easily eat up the rest of that time and send you straight to bed when you’re done.

As you can see, that 24 hours can disappear pretty quickly. . . and then we wake up and do it all over again! But an extremely important part of living a balanced and healthy life is taking time for ourselves, to focus on our own growth and education. In order to  make progress in our lives it is vital that we invest some time and energy into looking at everything: identifying what’s going well and not going well, coming up with solutions to our “problems” (both internally and externally), setting goals, making gameplans/strategies and continuously learning new things. When we begin to set that process in motion we embark on an upward spiral of personal development that can be extremly rewarding and exciting.

At the end of the day, many people feel like they’re stuck in the “rat race”. And most people think of that in just financial terms, of getting by from paycheck to paycheck. But this also applies within, and all too often. If you’re not taking the time out of your day to focus on your growth then you’re going through your own internal rat race that leaves you right where you were the day before and with an endless feeling of being “stuck”.

So if you’re spinning the wheel in either of those races, ecomically or personally, realize that the only way to break free from that cycle is to start taking time for yourself. Grab a journal, grab a friend, grab a mouse and a keyboard, whatever it is you need to grab, grab it now and stop waiting for some special day when your life is going to magically change itself. Cause it’s not! You are going to change it and only you. And it’s going to start with finding those few extra minutes everyday to spend with yourself and have a sincere, honest and loving conversation. Good luck :)

2 comments:

  1. always a nice reminder. it's such a human condition to dream big but never make or take the steps to get there, too busy with the day-to-day.

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  2. It's my time in the garden, feeling the sun or rain on my face, rubbing the herbs between my fingers and inhaling their scent, touching the silky pedals of the roses or digging in the dirt planting a future meal. I take this time to pause and reflect and to take that deep breath to clear the day. Our lives are so full of motion and sound that we need to take a moment to
    settle our souls and free our thoughts.

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