How are you spending your time?

Question of the week: How are you spending your time?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself a lot lately. We all have the same amount of time in a day, yet we spend it so differently.

Some of us go after our goals with everything we have but don’t stop to enjoy it, some of us dream bigger than our imagination but hardly put anything into action, and some of us go along with the path set out for us even if it’s not what we want. And there’s every other combination in between.

We all have less and less time as we get older. Are you wasting it? We need to be more conscious of the excuses we’re using and be more honest about what is holding us back. Only then can we move onto what makes us happier and keeps us fulfilled. We might not spend every day to its highest potential, but we can always do better, before it runs out.

How to stay on track with your goals

Focus on fewer goals – we often make the mistake that we want to change everything at once. And whilst there might be lots of things we want to achieve and change, we cannot do everything overnight. Pick a couple to really give your all to each month or each quarter. Once they’re engrained in your life, you can look at picking up more.

Break down bigger goals into smaller ones – our passion for our new year or life goals can slowly morph into overwhelm when we realise how long the road ahead is. That’s why we should set short rest stops along the way. Set weekly, monthly, quarterly milestones to give your journey more direction and make it more enjoyable.

Find your why – goals are nothing without the drive behind them. Make sure you’re setting goals that actually mean something to you and that you’re setting them for the right reasons. Create a vision board, even digitally on Pinterest, to remind yourself of your intentions and to push you when you need it.

Keep track of your progress – motivate yourself by tracking your habits and progress across the month. I like to note down what I’ve achieved and what habits I’ve stuck to everyday in a journal.

Improve your accountability – tell a friend about your goals to help you stay accountable and get support when you need it. Plan out when you’re going to commit time to achieving your goals each week. Be realistic, but you have to make the time and stick to your schedule.

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Your best is enough

Strive for progress over perfection. Seek to be better than you were yesterday. Appreciate the journey, and not only the destination. Celebrate your triumphs, no matter how small. Focus on the building blocks, not the stumbling blocks. Remember your best is enough. With it, you’ll achieve great things.

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Moving a mountain… Confucius

The main who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones ~ Confucius

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Quiet fierceness

You have a quiet fierceness inside. It can whisper, it can roar. Don’t drown it out with arrogance or doubt. Believe in your inner worth, inner confidence, inner ability. Nothing will take you further than belief in yourself. Nobody will take you further than you. Roar from within.

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Work in progress

  
Life is a work in progress. It won’t always be easy, it won’t always be perfect, and it won’t always be bright. But it’s those complexities, discrepancies and intricacies that make it worth living. We appreciate more when we have less, appreciate ease when we’ve worked hard, and appreciate light when we’ve sat in the dark. We’re still finding our way and changing our minds and making mistakes and trying again. Life’s a work in progress and we are too. We can design and live as we please. That’s the beauty of life.

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The world needs you

  
The world needs you to pursue your dreams, to follow your heart, to trust your instincts. The world needs you to stop procrastinating, to start making plans, to try and try again. The world needs you to use your voice, to stand up for what you believe in, to inspire others. The world needs you to love, to forgive, to move on, to hold on. The world needs you to care about something and do something about it. The world needs you, in order to keep turning. If dreams go, life is a barren field frozen in snow.

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Switch on the lightbulb

  
Some people are going to say that your ideas are stupid. Don’t listen to them. People ridiculed the idea that the earth revolved around the sun. The truth is, people tend to put down things they don’t understand or put down things that contradict their way of thinking. Don’t let that stop you from pursuing your ideas. We won’t ever move forward if we don’t think differently. Show those doubters, non-believers and haters. Switch on a lightbulb in the darkness they’re trying to shut you in. 

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Draw outside the lines

  
In life, we end up spending too much time trying to connect the dots plotted out for us. Instead, we should be brave enough to draw outside the predetermined lines. For many of us, progress, happiness and success fall outside those lines. So don’t be afraid to get a little messy, roam with no set destination, or go off on a tangent. Trust your instincts and trust your heart. When we finally learn that there are no lines that bind us, we finally see that happiness, success and progress are not found along them, but beyond them.

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Work in progress

Strive to be better than you were yesterday. At loving, at dreaming, at hustling. We don’t need to be the best. We don’t need to be perfect. Be ambitious, but don’t toss away progress for the idea of perfection. Perfection poisons our minds to the point where we do nothing at all. We end up telling ourselves perfection is unattainable before we even get started. In truth, we’re all just a work in progress. Progress is attainable. And that’s how it should be.

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