Time Integrity for Entrepreneurs: Mental Time Leaks, Part 1
It’s your nature, as an entrepreneur, to want to create and manifest new things, consistently. It’s not that you don’t have great ideas and projects you want to accomplish and people you want to help; the problem is that you have no time to do the extra things in life that you would like to do. Your life is changing at a rapid pace and it feels as if you have too many people, responsibilities and necessities, pulling you in a thousand different directions every waking hour. It’s no surprise that you feel stressed and fatigued and have no time for fun or enjoyment. Often, as a business owner, you are also a workaholic.
The problem isn’t just your lifestyle and how you currently use or misuse your time; it’s also about how you use your mental and emotional energy. You’ve certainly experienced what I call, mental time energy leaks. Simply put, TIME LEAKS are those self-defeating thoughts, feelings and behaviors that drain your time and energy by creating anxiety and unnecessary worry. Mental energy leaks occur when you use your mental or emotional energy on your thoughts, worries, doubts, fears and grudges. When you cannot maintain your energy level, you cannot learn new skills, adapt to new procedures and change direction quickly. You cannot focus on marketing or creating new services or products to stay competitive in your marketplace. You clearly are not using your potential when you are not effectively using your mental or physical time.
Wasting your life by trying to live in the past or the future is one energy leak that almost everyone has experienced and it interferes with your true time integrity. How many times have you caught yourself saying, “I can’t wait until I earn more money.” “I can’t wait until I have expanded my business.” “…my vacation.” “…I own an office building.” or “…move into a new home.” When we daydream of the future, it is only a daydream; we are not creating goals, but wasting the NOW.
Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “Life was so much better when __________.” (You fill in the blank.) The problem with spending your energy in the past and/or future is that you’re stealing from the one true resource that can’t be replaced-NOW. All you have is this moment in time. Your present time is so precious, yet, you’ll act as if it were okay to waste the only thing you really own in life: the present.
You can prevent energy leaks by taking a different perspective on your view of time. Most of us subscribe to the continuum view of time, which is a useful way of organizing your memories. Those thoughts represent your life. You would most likely describe what the past means to you as a progression of activities, events, people, places and things-some good, some bad-and you would call these experiences your past.
The past also consists of your perceptions and interpretations, combined with your physical and emotional reactions to them. All of your memories occur in the present time-all you have in life is the present. The past is a locked door; you cannot return to change anything.
When you describe the future, you will most likely talk about events that may happen. The future is a picture of your imagination at work. You base your future on the memories of the past, just rearranged to meet your expectations of what you think the future will be.
If you live in the past, then you deprive yourself of awareness of the only moment you have to enjoy anything-TODAY. The present is the only time you can ever truly know peace, joy, love, freedom, happiness, wisdom and compassion, which, for most people, represent the best of life. Remember, your time is your only true currency. Spend it well.
