Does anyone else wake up several times a week from a dream where you were late for a flight or missed your interview call or didn't hear the siren that kicked off the marathon, so you immediately fell behind?!
I don’t know about you but I ALWAYS feel like I am running behind. I'm perpetually feeling like I wont finish all that I have to do, or that I'm going to be late, or that I'm already late. I'm constantly in a rush.
Living in a current state of rushing makes me feel stressed, anxious, and, honestly, like a. failure.
You’ve probably never thought about your relationship with time like you have about your relationship with your partners, kids, boss or friends. But, what if we did?
What if what stresses us out is the experience we create with time and not time itself? Time is a fact - 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, 365 days in a year. There is no wiggle room. It is what it is. But we create an experience inside ourselves of ….my favorite topic, being “Not Enough." We create the idea of being "late" in the first place.
What if we started to shift our relationship with time?
What if we believed that we were always exactly where we needed to be, that we were doing our best and would get there exactly when we were meant to (whether thats "on time" or 5 minutes after the time we thought we would be there).
What if we admited that "stress" was our response to a fake thing we made up "being late" and we decided that we were happy to just arrive when the arriving happened.
The reality is time is a gift. We should be greatful for every minute and enjoy it's beauty - not rush through the minutes and the hours to get onto the next ...
On the practical side, we can look at our expectations of what we can get done and what we can't get done. Do you really need to “quickly” throw in that load of laundry right before that conference call that you're taking from your phone on your way to your next in person meetng across town? Or scarf down an energy bar so you can make it to your appointment in time and still have enough energy to get in a gym session before you pick up the dog from the vet?
Don't let time be your enemy - it's a gift. Be thankful for it. Enjoy it. Protect it with all your heart.
The next time you're rushing off to the next ___ (it's always something), I invite yourself to pause and realize,
You are exactly where you need to be.
You cant arrive any earlier or later than the time in which you will arrive. So, just embrace your natural rythm and let the arriving and the doing happen without all the Rush.