A wide-spead pattern I keep encountering in my coaching work is people feeling they are ‘wasting their time’ (i.e. their life) on doing things they feel they shouldn’t be doing. Sometimes it’s ‘boring work’, sometimes it’s ‘colleagues interrupting me’, sometimes it’s ‘I am not progressing fast enough on this project I want to work on’.
Although those things can sound different on the surface, in their essence they are the same thing: a mind that has formed a pattern to focus on what it doesn’t want (waste time) rather than what it wants (gain time).
The solutions that keep popping up to a mind caught in a pattern like this gravitate around more control – I need to protect myself, I need to take active steps to limit boring work, I need to barricade myself in a time-space where I don’t get distracted, etc. Our bodies, however, resist the mind’s urge for more control by pushing for more freedom.
So what can we do about it?
Just like a river won’t stop flowing a certain direction if you dig a wider&deeper riverbed, digging into the ways you waste time and how to overcome them will only strengthen the existing pattern. What you need to do instead is divert the flow by digging a new riverbed and expanding it until most of the water starts going where you want it to go. What this means simply is asking yourself ‘What is time well spent for me?’.
Meditate or journal on this question and every time you feel you are wasting time, simply bring back those answers to mind. As you do, your brain learns to spot more and more of what works, more and more moments of ‘time well spent’.
At first, you might keep doing the same things, but this time you find something to enjoy about that boring work, the colleague interrupting you might become an “opportunity to connect”, you might see time you didn’t spend working on that project as time to actively care for yourself. Over time, the things you do might change too, as you keep finding more and more enjoyable ways to spend your time and directing energy towards them until naturally the old ones you didn’t like fall out.
Ready for your journey of gaining time? You know where to begin. Just ask yourself ‘What is time well spent for me?’ and start digging that new riverbed.
Love,
Zori
About The Paradise Vlog
I believe we already are in paradise, regardless of where we are and what’s going on in our lives. I believe life is a journey towards becoming aware of this and enjoying as much of it as we can in the limited amount of time we have here. The ‘The Paradise Vlog’ youtube channel is the space where I share my process of shedding patterns and beliefs that obstruct our view in order to replace them with presence, joy and wonder. It’s also my invitation to you – an invitation to connect and journey together in creative ways, as we help each other see through to the greatest expression of ourselves. I also love creating spaces for growth-oriented people to connect to their soul power and life purpose. I do that in the form of coaching and workshops. Reach out if you feel curious to explore these topics with me.
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