Time, talent, and treasure are three of my favorite things to talk about. These three important aspects or pillars are ones that I think many of us often fall short on. I would like you to start thinking about how you view things in life. Perhaps tweak your perceptions and maybe even help you change a few habits that may be holding you back from reaching your potential.
I’ve seen the cause and effect of the first pillar – time, in my own life. How do you use your time? How do you view time and its relationship to your progression? You know, we all progress on different levels and how we choose to use our time actually defines where we end up in life. The difference between those who are the most successful, by any definition of success, and others is their use of time. Maybe they were born with a certain advantage or maybe not. There are many who have become successful based on their hard work and effort. There are many who work hard but still struggle. The difference between the two groups is really how and where they used their time.
If you kept a daily log of what you do with your time, I think you would be surprised and maybe a little bit disappointed. How much of your time is filled with a lot of waste; things you do that don’t produce anything? If you realized how valuable your time is, I think you would readjust some of your habits. I know personally that I have.
So, for the next 48, 72 hours, whatever time frame you choose, log down what you do with your time. How much time do you sleep? How much time do you exercise? How much time do you spend working on projects? How much time do you spend with family? How much time do you spend watching tv? How much time do you spend eating? Everything you do, just log it down. I know it sounds like a funny thing to do but in reality, if you don’t start looking at where you invest your time, you won’t see what’s actually happening in your life. The saying is that who you write your checks to tells me a lot about what is important to you.
Our use of time is an illustration of where we are going with life and how we see ourselves. Time is a very interesting concept. It doesn’t matter how rich or poor you are. There’s no difference between the richest man in the world and the poorest man in the world when it comes to time. The only difference is how each of them uses their time. We have 24 hours, 1440 mins, 84000 seconds in a day. Every day each one of us uses the same amount of time over and over again.
What are you doing with your time? Is your time spent working towards your goals? Is your time being spent wisely investing in those things that will move you forward towards the things that are most important to you? The great part about time is that you get to decide what’s important. Do you want to be financially successful? You define that. Do you want to get in the best shape of your life? You can do that, regardless of your age! Do you want to improve your relationships with your family? Your friends? Do you want to learn a new skill? Work on a talent? All of that takes time.
See, time is finite, eventually time will run out for each of us. Somewhere down the line, we don’t know when, but eventually our time here on this earth will pass. What we’ve done with our time will really be the portrait of who we have become. What we don’t want to do is live with regret. We don’t want to be lying on our death bed looking back through the panorama of our life and have regret. Wishing we could have done something different. Don’t leave it until the end to think about that regret. Change now. The great part about life is that we’re allowed to change every single day. We just have to understand how time plays into our stretch of mortality.
What are you doing with your time? When I wanted to change some of my habits, whether it was to get in better shape or lose some weight or just overall change things in my life I took a look at what was I doing with my time. I found it very interesting that I was wasting a lot of time. Have you ever spent time just watching tv and you just kind of zone out and eventually you wake up and realize, I’ve just been watching the same things over and over again? That was me thinking I was relaxing every night.
Is that what life is about? Just wasting time? What would happen if you cut out the wasting activities in your life and started to refocus on your bucket list, those things that you want to do? I believe that you will find a more fulfilling life.
I know I did when I began to change my life. I directed my energy away from TV, away from just sitting around, and doing nothing to actually engage in things that promoted what I wanted to do with my life. Understand the value of time and use it to your advantage. Think about it. What would you like to do and what are the steps that are going to get you there? How do you use your time? Remember success is never an accident.
