How do you know how to best spend your time?

The mindset of a life winner

Have you ever felt the pressure of being stretched in multiple directions? You know what you want, and you’ve got a plan, and yet you sometimes find it hard to progress because life is pulling you into many other directions.

We all know that FOCUS is great, but how do we get to focus in a world that constantly distracts us and pulls us into so many directions and into so many different tasks?

As usual, there is no easy answer, and I don’t even pretend to have one. However, I would like to share my view on this problem. Rather than considering distractions as actual distractions, I rather prefer to consider them as unexpected ways for me to reach my goals. So instead of resisting against the various areas of my life I spend time on, I accept it and get on with it with excitement with the underlying belief that it is meant to help me get to where I want to be.

The advantage of this mindset is two-fold:

1. Day-to-day life becomes instantly more pleasant and stress levels go down
2. You get to learn and grow through everything you do, not just what is supposed to make you grow

This mindset brings back the concept of the Journey, and that life takes us places because learnings and valuable experiences are waiting for us there.

I’m not saying you won’t ever feel stressed again, but I do believe that if you were to take on this belief for 10 days, you would find yourself enjoying what you are doing much more. Why not giving it a try?

How does it all tie together?

Recently one of my coaching clients asked me how I managed to reconcile weGrow, my career, my properties investments, and all the other things I did. It got me thinking and I realized that unconsciously I had built a structure that convinced me that all those things were pieces of a bigger puzzle that made me happy and fulfilled.

This is the diagram I then drew to explain it:

Basically, I keep my balance and satisfaction around how I manage my time based on:

1.  MY VALUES
2. MY LONG-TERM GOALS
3. MY SHORT-TERM GOALS

And no surprise, this reflects the structure of the life compass. 

I know how each activity I invest my time in feeds one of my 4 pillars and if it does not, I want to be conscious and aware of it before I start spending time on the activity.

So Coaching for me is not related to my Present Security pillar otherwise I would need to change how I approach it in 2 ways:

• I would be looking actively for a wider clients base
• I would increase my rate

Or for example Villa Feria is a great project and I really enjoy working on it, and at the moment I do not spend more time on it because the priority is on my “Present Security” pillar

When this one is sorted I can look more at my creation pillar

Does that make sense?

This is what I meant when I said “be clear on why you do what you do” and then it will be easier to prioritize.

And by the way, each pillar is activating different aspects of my personality:

• creation and service are all about faith, passion, energy
• present and future security are all about being mature, patient, strategic, structured, and solid which are both parts of who I am

That’s it!

So 2 things to keep in mind:

1. Give a go at the mindset described up there
2. Define what your own life pillars are

Enjoy and check out my courses here!