Episode 21 - Time Creation
Episode 21 - Time Creation
Time is such a fascinating concept and it is something that I had a lot of scarcity around in the past.
You could say I have had a strained relationship with time.
Time is the most valuable asset we all have and we literally cannot get more time.
It is finite.
We all have the same 24 hours in a day.
However, there is a way to manage time so that we can create more within the time we have.
We can actually create time with our minds.
Time is a mental construct.
It is a way that we can manage our minds around each day.
Time is defined as “the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole.
Progress of existence. Time is progress.
That is why we are here - to progress.
How do you define time in your life?
I think most of us would agree that we would love more time - in our days, in our years and in our lives.
There are definitely days I wish I just had just a couple of more hours.
This is interesting to consider. Why? Why is more time desirable?
Think about how you view time.
Do you believe that don’t have enough time?
Or do you believe that you have plenty of time?
Again, we all have the same amount of time each day but our thoughts about the time we have are different.
The way we think about time changes our personal experience of time.
So, if time is so valuable, it would make sense that we would want to understand how we use or spend our time.
The truth is, many of us don’t use our days deliberately. We live unconsciously and we let the day slip away. We aren’t using anything to manage our time. A day slips by and we don’t even know how we have spent each hour. We lose sight of the gift that is each hour.
Our thoughts about time create how we use our time. If we believe we don’t have enough time or that we are too busy, we live that way and create that experience for ourselves. If we believe there is plenty of time, we live with more intention. We aren’t rushed. We are present.
Our thoughts really do determine our time.
In our society, there has been a tendency to view busyness as a badge of honor. Burning the candle at both ends was admired and celebrated. The more hustle the better. I was definitely guilty of this. The busier I was, the more I must have been accomplishing, right? Somehow all the things I was doing had to be very important which made me important, right? Wrong.
Our importance is not dictated by the number of things we squeeze into 24 hours.
In the culture of my faith, there is a tendency to put pressure on ourselves to do it all. To be able to do all the things and be perfect at them. Temple attendance. Service. Scripture Study. Family History. Food storage. Journaling. Just to name a few.
We listen to talks and lessons and pull out of them all the things we could be doing better. We watch our neighbors and friends and start believing we need to be doing all that they are doing in order to be better or more righteous. In our quest to improve and progress, we tend to move toward perfectionism. Believing our worth is tied to what we accomplish and achieve. And using what we see as falling short as a way to beat up on ourselves.
I don’t believe God is putting pressure on us. He knew we couldn’t do it all. We aren’t meant to do it all. We are here to have a mortal experience where we learn, grow and progress. Time is progress.
The truth is, we are 100% worthy and valuable without doing any of the things.
So, then what is the motivation?
For the fun of it. For the experience of it.
For the learning and the growth that comes with it.
To become more like our Savior.
To experience joy.
There are things we do that cost time and there are things we do that create time.
This can seem confusing because we think of time as fixed but remember it is a mental construct.
This is why one hour “feels” different from another depending on what we are thinking and ultimately experiencing.
You may be stuck in traffic and your car is hardly moving for an hour. That is going to feel very different than having lunch and visiting with a dear friend for an hour. The hour is the exact same amount of time, but it feels different so the way we talk about it is different.
Time goes fast or slow depending on how we think about it.
I like to think of time as something we spend or create. Sometimes we spend our time in a way that costs us. Other times we are more deliberate with our time which creates more time.
One of the first things to help us create more time is to consider how we cost ourselves time. Some of the main ways we waste or lose time are:
● Worrying
● Buffering
● People pleasing
● Indecision
● Confusion
● Judging ourselves and others
● Regretting
● Being overwhelmed
I want to talk about each of these for a minute.
Worrying pretends to be necessary, but it produces nothing of value. There is no upside to worrying. I like to think of worry as an action, something I am doing. I am indulging in a negative emotion. It burns up time. There is really nothing to show for the time we spend worrying.
As a mother, I have spent a lot of time worrying about my children. I would worry about the worst case scenarios with my children. They would make certain choices and I would immediately go to worry. I would lose sleep because I was worried. I wouldn’t accomplish anything in that time but worry and rarely did I find a solution because I was using my time thinking about things that hadn’t even happened yet. Now, I am not suggesting that you will never worry. It happens. However, are you indulging in worry? Is the amount of worry you experience costing you time? What is the upside to worry? What is the downside to not worrying?
Buffering is a way to escape emotion. It takes us away from the present moment and the present emotion. It chooses unconsciousness—or an escape from time and costs us time.
I have used food as a buffer for many years. Again, instead of dealing with the emotion I was feeling I would stuff it away with food only to have the emotion come back later and then I would repeat the cycle. Buffering allowed me to escape uncomfortable emotions for a time but left me with less time and more of what I didn’t want - weight gain, poor health and shame.
People pleasing is saying yes to get someone to change how they feel about us. This is wasted time because we are trying to control the uncontrollable. It’s saying yes to others and no to ourselves. Any time we say yes to someone and no to ourselves, we are costing ourselves our own time.
This is something that I did for a long time. I would put my needs and wants last in order to manage other people's emotions or perception of me. I made myself a victim and was not living an intentional life. Saying yes to things I didn’t want to do because I was believing I should or had to and then I was miserable on the inside. This is different from service. People-pleasing is all about control, manipulation, and obligation. Service is about wanting and desiring to give. It comes from a clean and beautiful place. Sometimes we do things we don’t want to do but it is because we want to be the kind of person that does that thing.
Indecision is one of the most common ways we spend our time uselessly without even noticing. When we don’t make a decision, we deny action. We choose to be stuck as time ticks by instead of making decisions and moving forward.
This is something that I haven’t struggled with very much. I can make decisions pretty quickly but it is a joke with one of my children. I have a saying that I use on occasion with this child. It is this. No decision is a decision. When we don’t make a decision because we are afraid of making the wrong decision, we are actually making a decision and it is mostly likely one we won’t want in the long run. We get so caught up in making the wrong decision that we block ourselves from moving forward. I could do a whole podcast on this topic which I will probably do one day.
Judging ourselves and others doesn’t give us anything in return. It feels like action and it feels important, but really, it’s a wasteful use of time. If we could stop judging, we would have an amazing amount of time to create.
I have wasted a lot of time in my life wishing others were different. I have wasted a lot of time wishing I was different. And never did it create what I wanted in my life. It was when I began meeting myself and others where we are on this mortal journey that I became a creator. Creating a life of more intention, love, compassion, joy, goodness, grace and time.
Regretting is the way we use our past to cost us our present. I can’t think of one upside to regret. You don’t need to regret a past behavior to never do it again. You can simply learn and let go.
I spent many years regretting some of the choices I made in the past. I carried those regrets like rocks in a backpack. I would lug those regrets around with me everywhere I went. People could not see them. They were invisible to everyone but me. In my mind they were like a neon sign, advertising my flaws and shortcomings. The pain of regret limited the life experience I was creating for myself. Once I decided to set that bag of regrets down at the Savior’s feet and just let them go, peace came. I no longer live from regrets. I live with intention from the lessons I have learned on my journey.
And finally, we waste time being overwhelmed. If you notice, overwhelm has never led to action—it always leads to inaction. It is a lot like worry. It is something we are doing. We are indulging in a negative emotion thinking it is necessary.
As I have become more aware of my thoughts and emotions, I can see when I move into overwhelm. Believing that there is just too much to do and not enough time. In the past, I would spin into the blackhole of overwhelm. Spinning in circles not knowing what to do and feeling out of control and then I would act out of control. My family will attest to that. Many scenarios where they would see their mom freak out in overwhelm. I don’t really like who I was in those moments but I am grateful for what I learned from those moments and I don’t have to operate from overwhelm. Those times of contrast have taught me that everything will work out. Maybe not like I thought but it will work out. I may experience uncomfortable emotions at times but I can handle them. Life is not happening to me but it is happening for me.
So worry, buffering, people pleasing, indecision, confusion, judging, regretting and being overwhelmed all come from believing that things “should” be different than they are and that we and/or our lives “should” be different. Feelings of shame and guilt like to tag along which inevitably creates a time problem for ourselves.
By paying attention to these ways we waste our time, and being conscious in reducing the amount of time we do them, we can literally create more time for ourselves.
Isn’t that amazing!
We can create more time.
I recently spoke about discovering your life purpose. Again, it isn’t about what you do but why you do it.
After you discover your why, you can begin deciding how you want to spend your time creating a life you love.
This is where the fun begins. You get to work creating it. :)
But in order to really begin creating time we have to clean up our thoughts.
Do you have thoughts like:
There isn’t enough time.
I am so busy.
I am so bad at time management.
I am always late.
It just isn’t possible for me.
Thoughts like these keep you stuck and prevent you from creating time. These thoughts are not empowering. They are limiting and don’t make you want to get to work creating more time. They just suck time.
Managing your mind around time is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself.
Here are three things I invite you to remember:
You have plenty of time because you have the time you have. The time you have is the exact amount of time you need. Practice looking for proof of this and you will see that this is true.
You are a time creator. Managing your mind around the concept of time will bring peace and enjoyment to your life.
The way you treat time dictates the kind of relationship you have with it. As in any relationship, paying attention to it, being present with it, and being intentional with it strengthens your relationship with your time.
To schedule a free Discovery Call, join my Seasons of Joy Facebook Group, and register for my upcoming An Awakening Retreat go to Seasons Coaching.
