3 Steps to Take When You Find Yourself Saying ‘I don’t have time’!
How often have you said ‘I don’t have time’ this week? Either to yourself, or to someone else?
I shared a quote in my Facebook group this week from the 6th century BC Chinese Philosopher Lao Tzu:
“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time’ is to say ‘I don’t want to.’
Clearly, human beings have been thinking about how much, or how little, time they have for a VERY long time. Even still, I found this quote confronting, because it is definitely something I think or say quite a bit. It got me thinking about what was going on for me when I do, and a few things came up that might resonate with you too:
- I’m feeling overwhelmed by things and how busy life feels;
- I’m genuinely just very busy and don’t want to add anything else in;
- I actually don’t want to do whatever it is I’m being asked to do, but I don’t want to say no directly;
- Whatever I’m being asked to do (by myself or someone else) is taking me out of my comfort zone, possibly out of my stretch zone and I’m feeling afraid.
How many of these do you recognise? All of the above? Or maybe different thoughts in different circumstances?
Here are 3 steps to help shift your scarcity mindset about time:
Step 1: The key thing if you find yourself saying ‘I don’t have time’ is to notice it. Actually noticing it is critical – this builds your self-awareness and puts down a marker in your brain that will alert you when this happens again and again. This creates your opportunity for change.
Step 2: Use that increased self-awareness and the space it creates in your mind to identify what is actually happening for you. What are you feeling that is driving you to say ‘I don’t have time’? Is it fear, overwhelm, panic, anger (especially if someone is pushing your boundaries)? Identifying your emotional response and the reason for it, will now help you think through clearly and calmly about what you want to do about it, rather than continuing to rush along, carrying all those feelings with you.
Step 3: Decide how to use what you now know and understand about your response in a more deliberate way. Do you need to take a step back and reprioritise to create more space for yourself and reduce your overwhelm? Do you need to consider your boundaries and say a straight ‘no’ to some of the things you’re being asked to do? Do you need to acknowledge that you’re feeling scared by what you’re being asked to do and identify a couple of small steps to help you move forward?
When we say ‘I don’t have time’, what we’re really saying is something else, not to do with time itself, but about our priorities (or lack of them), our willingness to do something (or not), or about our fear.
Understand which of these it is for you, do what you need to do to address it, and take back the power of your own time!