Making Time vs. Having Time: How You Think it, Matters!

When I first started down the path I am now on, in January 2010, I had so many things that I wanted to do. I wanted to go back to school, I wanted to make money, I wanted to take care of and enlarge my spiritual life, I wanted to go to the gym, I wanted to spend more time with friends and family, and I wanted my own personal time. Unfortunately, there are only 24 hours in a day, 7 days in a week, and I have to spend 6–8 hours a day asleep (or everything else starts to unravel.

Prioritizing My Time

I had to learn to prioritize my time, but I was never able to do this because I never HAD enough time to do everything, and so I would just do things the way I wanted to, or the way I “needed to.” I would put off some things, and rush others, just so I could try and squeeze as many things as possible into my days. Needless to say I ran around like crazy, I forgot things, and I always seemed to be just a step behind everyone else (this may or may not have been true but it was how I felt).

I always said things like “I don’t have time for my friends anymore,” or “I wish I could go to that family gathering, but I have homework to do.” The truth of the matter is I HAVE time for anything, and I don’t HAVE to do anything. I do however choose what I am going to do, and as such I also am choosing what I don’t do.

Control of My Life and My Time

One of my instructors in psychology, in one of my first classes back at school, challenged me to actively try and change every time I said “have time” to change the word in my head or out loud to “make time.” It sounds like a subtle change, and it shouldn’t change things in my life, but that tiny challenge had a profound impact on how I have lived my life since.

If I say “I don’t have time to go to the gym,” I am conceding control of my life and my time to something, and there is nothing I can do to change it. It is immutable. However, if I instead say “I don’t make time to go to the gym,” I am admitting that I am making a choice to put other things before the gym.

Once I know that I am in control of my time, all of a sudden I can change my schedule around and do anything I want to do…..as long as I am willing to sacrifice something else. The challenge now becomes deciding what is most important to me, and sticking to that. When I am in control of my time, and not something unknown in the ether, I was able to design the life I wanted instead of scrambling around.

Willing to Take My Consequences For Choosing Me

There is one part of this mentality that is difficult, and that is the fact that when I am in control of my time and making decisions, I am responsible for the consequences of those decisions, and sometimes people don’t like my decisions, and feel they aren’t the priority they want to be. If I am choosing for me however, then I have to be willing to take the consequences of those choices.

You have all the time that you make for yourself.

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Jeremy Larsen
Business Development and Operations Manager
Coherence Associates Inc.
(760) 942–8663
www.coherenceassociates.com
info@coherenceassociates.com