We’re four weeks into 2015—how are your resolutions holding up?
The running joke when people create resolutions is wondering out-loud how soon in the year the resolutions will be broken. Beyond New Year, people make decisions everyday about chasing goals or improving lifestyles, but even the smallest of ideas tends to fizzle out upon first sight of a potential roadblock.
Reaching your goals doesn’t happen unless you’re willing to make sacrifices
One of the biggest reasons people don’t see their ideas and goals come to fruition is due to the perceived roadblock of not having enough time. The fact is, “I don’t have time” is a simply a lazy excuse. People now have unprecedented access to tools that suit all budgets and that can be used nearly anywhere— everything you need is at your disposal. Here are a few things to consider if you’ve ever hidden behind the “time” excuse:
Maybe You Really Don’t Have the Time
Here’s the thing: there are 168 hours in the week. The time is there; it’s just a matter of what you do with it.
Becoming a better writer doesn’t mean writing a novel in a week—it means baby steps and gradually hitting milestones. All you need is 10 minutes a day, and you can find the opportunities everywhere: wake up 10 minutes earlier in the morning or go to sleep 10 minutes later at night, practice writing during your lunch break, practice writing on the train during your commute home. The same approach applies to nearly anything you want to achieve—you just need to undercover these small opportunities for free time throughout the day and take advantage of them.
Exercise: What’s something you want to accomplish this year? Set aside 70 minutes this week towards that goal—that’s just 10 minutes a day. Drop a comment on this post after the week is over and let us know how you did, and what you plan on doing to create time moving forward.
Maybe Your Priorities are Wrong…
There are distractions everywhere. It’s much easier to hit the bar after work than it is to attend that networking event. But this is where you decide how much you really want it.
Putting on muscle and getting that six-pack doesn’t happen overnight—it happens through spending time at the gym and eating the right food nearly every day of the year. It requires leaving the comfort of a warm bed on a cold winter morning to hit the weights.
In short, reaching your goals doesn’t happen unless you’re willing to make sacrifices. By no means should you give up your social life, but if you make a schedule for reaching your goals or completing your resolutions, you need stick to it as close as possible.
Exercise: Allocate a once a week, 30-minute time block in your calendar to get things done—even if it’s just for simple mediation or to write a blog post. Make no excuses and see if you can stick with that time block for at least a month.
…Or Maybe You’re Doing Too Much
There’s also the flipside to this: you could be doing as much as possible to reach your goals, but are wearing yourself thin.
Burnout is real, and if you’re simultaneously trying to learn a new language, build a website, and write a short story—in addition to taking care of your job responsibilities—you’ll begin running on fumes. Your heart is in the right place, and you’re clearly dedicated, but there’s a chance that each task is getting only 75% of your focus instead of the 100% it requires, at which point the problem goes from “I don’t have the time” to “I can’t focus during the time I have.”
Exercise: Open your calendar and see if you can restructure your daily tasks to better utilize your time. If you think you’re doing too much, determine which tasks/goals are your priority, and which tasks/goals can be put on hold for a month.
Maybe You’re Waiting for the Perfect Setting
“I don’t have time” is often the first half of a much longer excuse (“I don’t have time only because it takes me so long to get to the library”). Everyone has the perfect setting in his or her mind for nearly any task or activity, or even just for everyday situations and scenarios (e.g. what the ideal morning commute would be like). If you don’t have the time to get things done because you’re waiting for the perfect setting(s), your life will always be on hold.
Ideal settings are just that: ideal. Everyone has an ideal job, ideal house, ideal vacation, and more. But you can’t wait until that ideal setting lands in your lap, as the time that could be used to work (which you’re currently spending on finding the perfect spot) is going to waste.
Conversely, you can’t wait for “inspiration” or “the right mood” to wash over you. Waiting for inspiration is a time killer and another way of putting off your goals. The perfect spot to get things done is anywhere, and the perfect time is right now.
Exercise: Stop waiting for the perfect setting or a moment of inspiration to strike. This week, pick up your laptop, head to a coffee shop you’ve never been to, and get some work done.