Finding Time for What’s Important

It seems like the most com­mon com­plaint today is not hav­ing enough time. “I don’t have time to go to the gym”, “I don’t have time to cook”, “I don’t have time to read” .… You get the pic­ture. We’ve all been there, and maybe even for good rea­son. But, if you don’t take care of your­self now, every­thing else starts to unrav­el as well.

Gabrielle Reece wrote some great posts on how to deal with this prob­lem when it comes to your phys­i­cal fit­ness and nutri­tion: Just 10 Min­utes a Day and Fit­ness Strate­gies for Stress­ful Times. She rec­om­mends tak­ing “baby steps” when approach­ing a new goal by set­ting lots of mini-goals that can help you reach your big goal and hav­ing a plan in place so that when things do start to come apart, you have a strategy. 

Mini-goals and strate­gic plans also hap­pen to be great stress reduc­ers. If the main goal (or dead­line or project) seems to be just too much, try break­ing it down into small­er pieces. Often you’ll find once you get into it, it’s not so dif­fi­cult or daunt­ing. The stress­ful part is just star­ing at it and feel­ing over­whelmed. Make a plan with defin­i­tive action items and then attack. Here is a sam­ple fit­ness plan and some ques­tions to con­sid­er to help you with those hec­tic times.

Anoth­er great stress reduc­er is a social net­work — which can be made up of friends, fam­i­ly, or both. If you’re try­ing to find ways to increase your phys­i­cal and men­tal fit­ness or nutri­tion, try rop­ing in some of the peo­ple in your life. A team­mate can make the task more fun and increase your odds of fol­low­ing through. Your bud­dy can drag you out on the days that you real­ly feel like stay­ing in bed! Heather Long has writ­ten some great posts on Fam­i­ly Fit­ness and brain fit­ness for the fam­i­ly. Try doing some things togeth­er — going for a walk togeth­er, tak­ing an active vaca­tion togeth­er, play­ing a game togeth­er after din­ner, see­ing a play togeth­er and then talk­ing about it. There are lots of ways to get your minds and bod­ies work­ing while spend­ing some qual­i­ty time together.

The great thing is that when you make time for the tru­ly impor­tant things, the pos­i­tive results snow­ball. Your phys­i­cal health may be your goal, but your brain fit­ness, emo­tion­al sta­bil­i­ty, and men­tal health will ben­e­fit as well, which will in turn improve your rela­tion­ships and self-image. And guess what, all that will prob­a­bly help your career more than work­ing non­stop until you’re exhaust­ed, stressed, and sick.