How To Create More Time In Your Life
I did not write this. Aviva Romm, a women I highly respect and admire, did. I read most of what I receive from her, and this is a message I want to pass on. Please read, and enjoy.
"You know how life happens and interferes with your plans?
Yesterday, irregardless of a long list of big things on my to-do list, along with all of the normal daily little things, I had jury duty. Then today I woke up with vertigo. It’s something that happens to me once every couple of few years - usually after a plane flight or a cold - and in fact, I just had a cold that started the day after a plane flight.
So that’s 2 days in a row of not getting done much of what’s on my to-do list. And it’s not like that to-do list goes away. It’s got big things on it. My work. Like writing a book and creating content for an on-going course, creating my social media, and getting ready for a full day of patients tomorrow, some of whom are quite a lot more sick than a little cold and some vertigo.
My initial response is to freak out just a little. As in “Oh s#!t, how and when am I ever going to catch up?”
But then, now perhaps that I’m old enough and quiet enough to remember to listen to her, I hear a quieter voice reminding me of a quote I heard long ago, “If you don’t have time, you don’t have eternity.” I’m still not sure exactly what it means, and I’ve never found who said it either, but what’s important was how I interpreted it two decades ago when I first heard it, and how I continue to interpret it now: "If you don’t have time, you don’t have a healthy life.” There’s also another important quote that was told to me, by one of the first women whose babies I midwifed - this was back in 1987. Rosa, a beautiful and brilliant psychiatrist from Puerto Rico said, “Aviva, here in the US people live by the belief that life is short. It makes everyone busy and rush all the time. Where I’m from we live by the belief that life is long.”
Hah. There’s plenty of time. And life is long.
How would our inner lives, and as a result our outer lives and health, be different if we lived by these beliefs instead?
Especially in this holiday season, we can start getting crazy busy rushing and stressing and pressuring over gifts, food, cramming to get our work done so we have more time with family. More time.
I’ve worked with so many dying patients in my life as a doctor. In the end what people really want is more time. That’s what we all wish for. Because time is precious. And because too often we feel we’ve rushed it away with busy.
So how can we take a more expansive view of our time? First is to change our beliefs about it - as Rosa taught me, life is long. Try living with this belief and see if it doesn’t help you to change your inner sense of racing to a finish on your goals, daily tasks, and even your life dreams. It allows us to be more in the present and to feel a sense of expansion and spaciousness rather than contraction.
Another is to take a look at our priorities. The fact is that many of us pile too much on ourselves and create unrealistic expectations of the time we have. For example, studies have shown that it takes. on average, 30% more time to complete most tasks and projects than we allocate. We end up crushed against impossible goals and deadlines because we’ve not created realistic goals.
Also, many of us have expendables on our priority list. Projects we’ve taken on or goals that we’ve set that we don’t really need to put on ourselves - or at least not all at once.
Rethinking priorities is a powerful practice that I share with my patients and students in my programs, and now I’m sharing how to do this with you, right below. If you can, take about 5-10 minutes now, this evening, or this weekend to answer the questions on this free download - no sign-up is required to get a copy.
Then adjust accordingly. It might be as simple as taking that extra holiday party off of your list for next week, trimming down the number of gifts you're giving to each child or family member, or having fewer items on the holiday dinner you're serving. Or if can be as big as not writing the book, starting the online business, going to graduate school, and starting your family all at once. Life is long. Sequencing big goals is beautiful.
We’ve also been sold - especially as women - on the myth of multitasking. While yes, women and especially moms are particularly adept at stirring the soup, bouncing the baby, taking the phone call, and reviewing the brief for tomorrow’s board meeting all at once - we pay the price in terms of both stress and the quality of our work. One of the most important books I’ve read in recent years is called The One Thing. There’s another one called Essentialism. They’re about depth of focus on less rather than diluted focus on too much at once. I highly recommend reading one or both if you’re struggling with time, overwhelm, and wanting to have less on your plate so you can focus on fewer things but more deeply.
Finally, if you’ve gone past the point of a little stress into serious overwhelm, if perfectionism or other patterns are driving you to always do so much that you never feel you have time (or eternity), and particularly if you’ve started to pay a price with your adrenal or thyroid health, please read my book, The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution. It was inspired by the women in my medical practice who were experiencing just that, so you might say it was written for women like you - who are trying to do so much for so many, but forgot to replenish themselves along the way.
Oh, and I promise you, you won’t be alone in reclaiming your time, your health, and your life. There’s a whole tribe of women working on doing exactly this. Or should I say playing with doing this - because who needs more work! You can find us over at The Adrenal Thyroid Revolution Facebook page once you purchase a copy of this book. And I’ll be right there with you."
To your greater ease, peace, and health, Aviva
