There is a finite amount of time, energy and money in your life.
There are only 24 hours in each day. The money or credit that you have right now is limited. The amount of energy that you have to participate in life is limited.
We all have our individual limits of each of these resources. You might have less energy than a friend or you might have more time to use because you don’t need as much sleep as the average. Whatever it might be, YOU have a limit.
Admittedly, there are ways we each trade one resource for another. You can trade sleep for time but by not sleeping enough you are dipping into your energy resources. You can trade money for time and energy by paying someone to clean your house, watch your kids, write your book…but in the end there are still only 24 hours in each day and there is no way money can buy you out of those limitations.
Each one of us makes daily decisions regarding how we are going to spend our precious resources. There are experts who specialize in teaching you to make, save and spend your money the best way possible. Experts who focus on saving for retirement, experts who focus on living life to the fullest in the moment, and ones who try to teach ways to balance the two goals out.
There are efficiency experts to help you manage your time, to get more done in less time, to manage your to-do list so you have more time with your family and friends, to save time being organized and these are certainly of importance to me.
However, the thing that is missing in these conversations is ENERGY. Everything in our lives also takes our energy. Whether it is walking the dog, taking care of the our homes, planning our retirement, cooking dinner, going to work or writing a blog (like I am doing now); all of these tasks require your energy.
Some tasks, especially ones that you have done often, only take the energy required to do that specific task. Walking the dog becomes routine once you’ve done it for years. This task only requires the energy to actually perform the action.
This is not true for tasks that are new to us. Writing this blog is one example. I need to generate the energy to actually contemplate what I want to say. I can’t just sit down and write a blog. I roll each of these ideas around in my mind until my main idea coalesces and rises to the top.
Writing has always been something that I defined as a task I did not excel at. Over the last year, as I work on my coaching business, each time I needed to write something for the first time I had to spend some energy just convincing myself I could write well. I needed to talk my brain out of finding distractions and push forward. Only then was I able to sit down and write. Writing a blog, for me, takes much more energy than the energy it took to sit down and write this out today.
With that in mind…What do you need to let go of, at least for a little while, to allow yourself the energy to accomplish the goals on your intention or resolution list, making 2014 your best year yet?
We all manage, every day, to fill up the 24 hours that we are given and we find the energy that goes along with those hours. If you are going to do something new and different for yourself this year then something else has to be let go of, at least until your mind, body and spirit are trained for the new activity.
Could you stop watching TV or only watch for 2 hours a week? Could you take the bus into work so that you can read and/or work during your commute? Could you enlist the people in your home to plan or make more of the meals? Could you stop saying yes to every request for your assistance, instead focusing on yourself in the moment?
What are you going to let go of?
I am choosing to trade out some of the electronic brain-teaser games that I like to play at night and instead reading one of the many books on my nightstand and in my Kindle that I’ve been wanting to read.
Leave me a comment below and let me know what you think about these ideas. If you like them let me know what you might choose to give up in order to make 2014 your best year yet.
Join us on all kinds of social media as we make 2014 the Best Year Yet with #2014BYY. Join the Mindfully Organized Challenge Group to make 2014 awesome!
