While energy and competency levels may vary from person to person, there are only 24 hours in a day and limitations on what can be accomplished within that amount of time. You may be able to “burn the candle at both ends” or go without much sleep for some period, but eventually it will catch up with you and manifest itself through increased stress and health issues.
We are all the architects of our own lives, at times struggling with the design challenges; however, the adult experience we build is our own. Happiness is a choice, not just an outcome. It should also be an expectation.
Time is finite for all of us. We can estimate how long we have, but estimates often run up against harsh reality. Tomorrow is another day until it is not. Some people get advance warning and have a chance to say goodbye and make peace with their life. Others leave us in an instant with little or no preparation. Why is it that we resist embracing the true fragility of life and the temporal nature of our relationships? Why does it take a loss or other personal crisis to shift our perspective and grasp what’s most important?
In our hurried and fast-paced world, it is often difficult to be “in the moment” of what you are doing at any point in time. Distractions abound as people and responsibilities clamor for your time. There are very few thoughtful, focused moments in a day when you can concentrate on the person, task, or situation at hand.
Almost everyone I know these days feels that there is too much to do and not enough time to accomplish it. They speak of the virtues of life balance but bemoan the difficulty of making this happen in their own lives. The problem is not time. The problem often lies in how an individual views time and the decisions they make from this perspective.
There are numerous daily distractions that make it challenging to stay focused. Since we cannot extend our days, we must optimise the time we have available. Whether it is at work or home, we need to have the ability to prioritize the urgent over the important and the important over everything else.
Sure, some individuals win the lottery or get disproportionately lucky, but success is usually the result of disciplined daily actions with a clear purpose. You need to know where you are going and stay focused on this objective.
There is nothing that can be changed about your actions from 5 minutes ago, let alone last week, month or year. What is done is done. What’s important is that you gain wisdom from these past experiences so that you can perform better in the present and be positioned more effectively for the future. It’s also important there is some sense of balance between the present and future.
We have a weekly newsletter packed full of weekly updates of latest content posted here.
