Time is the currency of life. If you don’t have any, you’re broke.
Don’t have time to eat well? Don’t have time to workout? Don’t have time to get eight hours of sleep? Don’t have time to meditate?
Time is the one thing you can never get back. Don’t let unnecessary bullshit take the only thing you can control – how you spend your time.
You have to be ruthless to protect your time. What’s more important?
- Watching your favorite tv show or getting eight hours of sleep?
- Cooking a healthy dinner or sending out a few more emails?
- Spending quality time with family and friends or putting in a few more hours at work?
- Reading how other people are living their life via Facebook or living your own life?
“All or nothing” is the mindset of the unsuccessful
“I can’t eat well today so fuck it, I’m going to crush those cookies, cake, and a coke at the company party.“
“Today is a cheat day, so I’m going to eat whatever I want all day.”
“I’m going to restart on my workouts next week”
Sound familiar?
If you see exercise, sleep, stress management, and nutrition as an all-or-nothing proposition you’ll never be successful. The stars will never align and the time will never be right to address any of these things.
Making lifestyle changes requires persevering through failure and learning from mistakes, improving incrementally day-by-day. Making a huge overnight change rarely works.
I’ve worked with clients that slowly addressed stress management, sleep, and nutrition over years. Years. Not weeks or even months.
The typical “I’m going to change everything overnight and if I don’t get immediate results I’m giving up” is a recipe for failure. Invest in the process. Invest your time. It’s the only thing you truly own.
Stress is not the enemy
We talk a lot about stress in this blog, but the truth is that stress is not bad. Difficultly in life should not be avoided. Eating well, prioritizing recovery, and exercising are necessary to be prepared for challenges.
While this article is talking about making time to do the right things for healthy and performance, difficult stretches in life where you may sacrifice one or more of these things doesn’t need to be avoided and probably shouldn’t be. The best things in life are often achieved during difficult periods. It’s the struggle that gives life meaning. Don’t avoid the struggle; be prepared for it.
If you make time to do take care of yourself as often as possible and are ruthless about self-assessment (if you’re actually doing everything you can) you’ll be ok when you do have to let one or more variable of health slide during difficult situations.
Resilient humans can handle stretches of high stress, low sleep, and sub optimal nutrition without breaking. We can’t handle lives of neglect of the fundamental behaviors that nourish our bodies and souls.
Make time or make peace with your life
To wrap things up, it’s all about making time; to eat well, recover, and enjoy life. If you’re not constantly vigilant about how you’re spending time you’ll find life has passed you by and yourself incapable of handling the struggles that used to create meaning and value in your life.
Do a time diary. Review your values and question how you spend your time.
Time is a finite resource. You only have so much and when it’s gone you cant get it back. How are you spending yours?
