It’s a new year and you are probably full of great intentions, or at least you were until the latest lockdown. Me too. I’m making my own kefir. Let’s see if that’s still happening by February.
How can we build our reserves of positive energy so we can cope, even thrive?
The first step is to transform our relationship with time.
Complete this sentence:
I would do this ………………………….. if only I had more time.
I spent the holiday season in COVID-restricted London, in much the way I lived the rest of the year: mostly feeling that I am running out of time, that there isn’t enough of it. Occasionally feeling bored, that time is taking too long.
It got me thinking about the concept of time. There are 168 hours in the week to fill. That gives me a comforting structure, a sense of order.
But what actually is time?
Do we take time to do something, or make time to do something?
Physicists say that time is an illusion, it’s not real. What do they mean by this?
They mean that the distinction between past, present and future is merely an illusion. Time is relative, it can vary for different observers depending on their speed and position.
Tick Tock not TikTok
In 1905, on his commute home from his job as a patent clerk in Berne, Albert Einstein liked to ponder on the secrets of the cosmos. He boarded a tram car and what he realised revolutionised modern physics. If he was alive now of course he’d just have numbed his brain on social media.
While moving away from the clock tower behind him, Einstein imagined what would happen if his tram car moved at the speed of light. If he were to travel at 186 thousand miles per second, the clocks hands would appear to freeze. At the same time, back at the clock tower, the hands would tick along at their normal pace. Time had slowed down. Einstein concluded that the faster you move through space, the slower you move through time.
Isaac Newton’s paradigm, two hundred years before, was that time is finite: even if nothing at all happened, time would still pass. Einstein discovered that Newton was wrong. Time is relative; it is only a reflection of change. There is no absolute space or absolute time. Our brains construct a sense of time as if it were flowing. That’s why ten minutes standing in the cold feels so slow and an hour on a hot date feels like ten minutes.
Everything is relative. The passing of time is only the relationship between some parts of the universe and your clock.
So what?
Yes, that’s great but you passed your GCSE physics a long time ago and what’s this got to do with work? You have a meeting at 15.00 in this universal dimension, even if the hour it takes will feel like an eternity, proving Einstein’s theory right there.
Time flows from you: you create your own time
Most of us still operate on the Newton model. As Gay Hendricks says in The Big Leap, Newton’s concept of time is built on scarcity, which leads to a constant anxiety of time urgency inside us. We rush. That’s the Crazy Busyness I talk about – hurry sickness, why people run around all day filling time with routine tasks and emails and never pausing to think or plan. It’s the same as when we think our food supply is threatened: we are frightened it will run out so we hoard it.
Now we know that time is relative, it flows from us. We have to become the boss of our own time and make time for what’s really important. Control your time, stop it from controlling you. It’s a simple shift but a powerful one. You have a choice about what you do: right now, today. Breathe, slow down, focus, you are in the driving seat.
You become what you choose to do all day
Does how you spend your day reflect your job title or values?
You don’t need costly time-trackers and productivity systems. You just need to know that you have a choice. You can say no. If you have to home-school your children, then you can’t do two things at once. No, not even you. That email can wait.
Make time
Generate abundance by choosing where you focus your time, energy and attention. There will never be enough time to do everything, so save it for what’s important to you: building meaningful relationships, tackling a game-changer, making a difference, learning, growing, achieving your dreams, prioritising your loved ones, taking care of your team. Eliminate all the small stuff because nothing else matters right now. Know your limits and set your boundaries.
I will make time to …………………………..
As always, I hope you find this helpful and I’d love your feedback. Please feel free to share it with your networks. Drop me a line if there are any topics or questions you would like me to cover this year.
If you haven’t booked my virtual sessions to boost both productivity and resilience, then there’s no time like the present.
If you are ready to fulfil your potential, get a coach.
Stay safe everyone and put your physical and mental health first.
Warmest wishes
Zena