Is Time Lost?

‘I Will Find Time.’ This is a popular phrase or mindset that many of us knowingly or unknowingly subscribe to. We speak of time as though it were something that is lost.

Time is never missing. We are the ones that miss out as the time allotted to us passes by.

So why do we say we will find time? I suspect it’s because it frees us of accountability in the moment we are making the commitment. Our responses should be ‘I will make time’’ and when we say this, we are shutting down all our potential excuses.

When we agree to make time for a task, activity, goal or person we are saying we will make the time that we have available to us work for us. We are saying we will accomplish the things that truly matter to us.

Sometimes, I hear the phrase, ‘I will try and find time’ and this is an even weaker version of the phrase. One might as well come out and say, ‘No’.

So what are you trying to find time for? Choose to make time…..

For You

Are you trying to find time for yourself? This can be time to further your education, time for personal and professional development, time to exercise more, time to spend with your loved ones, or time to focus on your own dreams and passions.

Are you going to find or make time for you?

For others

How many close friends do you have and how much time do you invest in your relationships with them? What about your family members? Are you waiting to find time or are you willing to make time for them?

I lost my dad over two decades ago and one of my regrets is that I didn’t get to spend as much time with him as I would have wanted. We were  on different continents and connectivity wasn’t as is today.

So I don’t take the time I have with my loved ones for granted. I am aware they can be gone in a flash with no way to turn time back.

For your career

Are you leaving your career to chance or making time to craft and shape it? We can go through our careers based on people telling us we would be good in a position or simply because an opportunity came up.

I hear many talk about their unintended thirty year career in a company and I wonder if their outcomes and choices would have been different if they had made time to proactively manage their careers.

For your dreams and goals

When it comes to our goals and dreams, we need to check that we are not trying to find time but we are choosing to make time because they matter enough.

If you could allow yourself to dream without limits, what would you dream of? That is the easy part. The next step is to choose to make and invest time in the dream otherwise there would be no point dreaming to start with.

The next time you catch yourself starting a sentence with the phrase, ‘I will find time’, pause and reflect on how you truly feel about the task or ask.

Make a conscious decision based on it’s importance. If it is important enough, simply make a decision to make time for it and build it into your plan.

If it isn’t important enough, be honest about it not being a priority. This will have an additional benefit of making you an honest and dependable person.

People think we are agreeing to a task when we say we will find time so they are disappointed by our lack of follow through.

Anything we agree to in this way also becomes clutter and noise in our minds because no real commitment is attached to them. So free yourself by making firm decisions that you can commit to and follow through on.

Thank you for reading my post. I would appreciate it if you can share it with others. See you next week.