As much as anything else, I found my challenge in achieving my goals was far more ENERGY management than time management. All too often, I failed to use my time as well as I could because I was not allocating my energy budget as smartly as I could! It was a combination of factors, everything from expending too much of my vitality on lower impact items to ineffectively matching up my various personal emotional cycles to the type of task. While the solution certainly includes mastering the basic fundamentals: good day planner etc. it also has deeper levels: You must master yourself as well, take the time to deeply know yourself, prioritize your priorities and align your days thereto.
This requires both the courage to say no to other priorities (Every yes being a corresponding no given finite resources, what did you say no to when you said yes?) AND the discipline to follow through, to keep the promises you make to yourself. Organizing my days and weeks in alignment with my personal mission was incredibly liberating. The better I could articulate my objectives and how my actions moved me forward, the stronger my purpose became and so too the deeper my resolve and thus the greater my energy, providing second wind after second wind.
When I engaged in extensive and profound self-exploration, it allowed me to deeply clarify my ‘why’. That hard gained self-knowledge in turn made the path to my goals far clearer which in turn led to the ability to create far more definite plans and powerful routines that it made it easier to find the energy to carry on even at the end of long days. A wonderful result was that I was able to reclaim/refocus evening and weekend time that previously had been slipping away.
While some of this was work and some discipline was necessary, particularly in the beginning, the more I persisted, the more these supportive patterns simply became habits, no longer requiring any particular effort, just part of who I was. When you create a self-concept, when you forage an identity, you sculpt a sense of self that aligns with your mission, and your need for self-discipline will greatly diminish because your motivation will spring forth from within.
Closing Quotes:
“When you change your identity, you change your behavior.” – Benjamin Hardy
“Once you decide who you are, what you do becomes much easier.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Be the person you want to become. Identity is destiny.” – Tony Robbins, Unlimited Power/Awaken the Giant Within
“Identity is not a fixed thing… it is a consistent up-to-date summary of our choices.” – Garry Kasparov, World Chess Champion, 1985-2000
“The moment you accept the idea that you are the kind of person who does X, doing X becomes much easier.” – James Clear, Atomic Habits
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn. – Nathan S. Collier
Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.
“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832
