Shift your belief about time, shift your behaviors
This statement is supported by research: if we can shift our beliefs and our intentions, we can change how we behave and the choices we make.
I’ve been playing with this concept as it relates to managing my to-do list and my time.
Just like many of you, I can be ambitious about all I want to do, leading to a full life.
When I find myself fretting about where I’m spending my time, I’m practicing being intentional about shifting my belief in the moment. Instead of thinking, “I really should be getting things done,” or “I must get this done now,” I instead say, “I trust there will be the right time for this. It doesn’t need to be done now.”
With this shift in belief and intention from should do now to will do when it’s the right time, I can change my behavior: stop the mental swirl and stay present in the moment. I can say to myself, “This time is not for that. It's for this now.”
In that space, I can give myself permission to put things aside and down. I can acknowledge that I’ve reached my mental and physical limit for the day. I can see that pushing more will be both inefficient and an over-extension. I can allow myself to settle into turning off and taking a break.
What if you were to practice with this? To trust that there will be the right time to get to that next to do? It's not time for that right now. The time for it is later. There will be the right time to get it done with focused attention, more energy, and less effort.
I've experienced this time and again. Honestly, just last week and with regard to my newsletter and this blog post. I had to practice with this mantra and strike the newsletter from the list as I took time away from work. It required me renegotiating with myself to push the newsletter out and reconfigure what it was now going to look like.
And what did I find myself saying as I returned to the task, “Ah, yes. It was okay to not focus on this last week. There is time for this now.”
And voilà! I completed my last April newsletter and with its exchange of ideas on ambition, time, work, money, and sustainability, and am sharing this blog post.
Trust that there will be time for that when it is time for that.
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