It’s something I hear a lot…
I can’t do that, I haven’t got time.
‘That’ can be many things of course, but all too often ‘that’ is something that means taking a tiny crumb of the day for yourself.
I find it much easier to give time to others than I do to give time to myself and I know I’m not alone. But why is that?
There may be many reasons that affect you but I just want to talk about one of them.
We think that taking time for ourselves is being selfish.
Let’s imagine the scene, you’ve been at work all day, you get home pretty tired having stopped off at the shop on your way home, wandered the aisles aimlessly looking for inspiration for the meal that’s so delicious that everyone in the family will eat it, is home made, packed full of much needed nutrients and takes just 5 minutes to prepare and cook. #fatchance
Having made dinner, you eat it and treat yourself to a glass of wine to celebrate getting through the day before catching up on a bit of house admin and then collapsing exhausted in front of the latest Netflix offering and probably missing the last 10 minutes because you nodded off (again!).
How the hell can I fit in reading a book for 5 minutes/ visiting the gym/rewriting my CV/applying for jobs/ joining a new hobby group/ seeing my friends? *Delete as appropriate
Recognise that feeling?
So let’s take a breath and look at this a little differently.
Firstly, let’s find a bit of space in our day….
Now I don’t want to get all annoyingly obvious or anything but let’s do a little bit of super simple maths…
We all get 168 hours in a week
If you are lucky enough to sleep for 8 hours per night, that leaves 112 hours
If you work full time, let’s say 40 hours per week, that leaves 72 hours per week
If you spend 3 hours a day buying, prepping and eating food, that leaves 51 hours per week
So what do you spend your 51 hours doing?
and whatever you do with them is fine but with a few small tweaks, could you eek out 30 mins for yourself across your week? An hour? Two hours? Imagine what you could do with 2 whole hours!
It’s amazing how time can disappear when we aren’t really noticing, so when we start to think about our time mindfully, it can be surprising how much time we can claw back from the evil time thief. So try mapping out your day in 30 minute slots for just two days and see if it makes a difference. What have you got to lose?
Now let’s think about the S word
When you look at the dictionary definition, this is what you’ll find…
adjective: selfish
(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for other people; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.
Does that really sound like you? No, I didn’t think so!
and here’s the thing; taking some time for ourselves to replenish our energy is not only completely unselfish, in fact it’s vital if we are to have any hope of continuing to help and support others.
Because when you are at the centre of keeping everything working, if you break, then everything gets broken, and then what happens? In essence, to support others, we need to make sure we are ok too or even better, flourishing!
So map out your day, find the time and then take it and do that something that will keep you sane and/or help you live the life you want to live.
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