2021 for me has been my year for getting clear on my intentions for growing my business while maintaining work/life balance and averaging a 40-hour week.
This is a BIG change for me!
Prior to this my only way of managing my work and growing my business was the work harder, longer, faster paradigm, resulting in clashing deadlines, lots of late nights and weekend working.
Maybe this resonates with you? For many people, work/life balance is a big issue.
You’ve all heard me tell the story of wanting to get fitter and climb Carrauntoohil (Ireland’s highest peak). That was an ambition for a couple of years and achieving it was being blocked by a thought pattern that said ‘there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything’.
As I became more aware of that thought pattern and realised that I’m the one choosing it, I decided to make some changes. In January I set the intention that this is going to be the year for me to continue to grow my business, on a 40-hour week and I am going to get fit. Climbing Carrauntoohil was one measure of getting fit and, by June, it was achieved.
I had no more time available to me in 2021 than the previous year. And in truth, we all only have 24 hours per day. But I experienced the time I had in a different way when I gave it a different thought pattern. Instead of there not being enough hours in the day, I asserted that there was plenty of time.
Is it that simple, just assert a different thought pattern to have a different result?
In many respects it is that simple. The problem is never the problem, the problem is always in the thinking about the problem. So when we change our thinking, yes, we absolutely can create a different outcome.
Everything is energy! The thoughts we think and the feelings they evoke have a vibrational frequency that attracts more of the same. New outcomes therefore require new thinking. But beware! Just like building any new habit, physical or mental, we have to be persistent and committed in repeating what’s new until it becomes automatic. Therein lies the rub!
Despite my success with making time to get fit enough for our big hike, right now I’m preparing to go on two weeks holidays and that thorny old paradigm of there not being enough hours in the day has been looming large. I’m feeling the pressure this week and I’m noticing the thought in me that says you’re going to have to “pay” for these holidays with having to work harder and longer when you get back. The old familiar thought that there aren’t enough hours in the day is hanging around again and I recognise the corresponding feeling of pressure to work much longer hours to fit everything in.
My job has been to acknowledge the paradigm and to again challenge it. I’ve been reminding myself that there’s more than enough time, that I made time to get fit enough for Carrauntoolhil and I can make time to experience my holidays and return to work in ways that I love.
The task here is to be intentional! It’s not about waiting to see how it all pans out, hoping I’ll fit everything in, that I’ll relax on holidays and crossing my fingers that it’ll all be ok when I get back to work. It’s about choosing up front the experience I want to have and creating the opportunities for that to happen backed by the belief that there is plenty time.
As I started to do that this week, I realised that some things were well in hand, workshops that I had been feeling were entirely my responsibility I’m actually doing with Associates who are already working on content and learning outcomes and were really supportive of enabling me to go on my holidays with ease.
Not only did I get on top of what I need to do by Friday, I’ve managed to do a first draft of a gift for all of you for later this year! This is something I’ve been dreaming of for about 3 years and it was this week, the week when I’d been feeling there weren’t enough hours in the day that I created time to draft it by asserting that there is plenty time and behaving accordingly.
How do you want to experience your holidays? Do you want to go into them feeling proud of all you wrapped up before you finished work for the break? Or are you going to risk falling into your holidays feeling overwhelmed, over-stretched and risk spending the holiday time just recovering?
And how do you want to feel as you get back from holidays? What do you want to be your experience as you pick up work again?
For me, I’m choosing the new time pattern. It’s a pattern that says there’s plenty of time, I can do this! And I chose to set my intention for a holiday that is relaxed and fulfilling and that resources and nourishes me to come back as my best self, ready for all I choose to commit to for the remainder of 2021.
The same is possible for you!
- What thought patterns do you have about time that aren’t serving you?
- What thought patterns would serve you better in order to change your experience?
- What outcomes do you wish to create with your new experience of time?
Remember, you get to choose your thoughts and time is elastic to your thinking!