What If It Was Never About Time?

I was standing in the kitchen, rolling a burrito for dinner, asking my youngest to turn off the TV, when I remembered I’d forgotten to email my admin about something that should have already been done.

I smacked my hand to my forehead. “Shoot!”

Sometimes I wish there were three of me, one taking care of each bucket of my life and helping to free up time.

One would be in charge of work. The other, family, and the other, me. The buckets often feel overflowing, partially because of the demands of being in the sandwich generation of parenting and helping parents, while also running a business.

It can feel like there’s never enough time.

Every leader, whether in a VP seat or a parent seat, knows that time can feel very limited. And most of us have been trained to approach this logically and tactically. Through the calendar, habits, and strategy. Which, I’m all for, except they don’t address the root issue.

If all we do is attack a perceived lack of time through time optimization, we will continue to take our stressed-out workhorse selves into even more to do, only with a well-organized calendar.

I get it. I have been known to write my grocery list with the layout of the store in mind, so I’m not scrolling through my list or bouncing around the store. It’s a sickness, I know. When I’m in and out of Costco in 20 minutes, I want to stand in the middle of the parking lot yelling, “Are you not entertained?!” Yes. I fully know that I’m the only one who is entertained. My husband, on the other hand, rolls his eyes. But behind the list and efficiency is a story that I can do it “smart” or “right.”

That story goes back to when I struggled to read like everyone else. I developed a story that I couldn’t figure it out, and it often seems that I’ve spent my life trying to prove that story wrong.

That’s what many of us do. We spend time in action that tries to prove a story we tell about ourselves wrong, or prove the story we want to be right. But we don’t stop to examine the story we’re telling and whether it’s who we actually want to be.

I see it in my clients, too.

I have a client who told me she’s physically at her kids’ games, but she’s so drained from work that she’s not really there. It just feels like there’s not enough time for it.

It’s actually not about time. It’s about her identity. She believes she has to be the one to deliver everything, perfectly, without dropping anything. She forgets to delegate because she views herself this way. Changing her behavior actually asks her to change who she believes herself to be.

We are story makers and storytellers. But we can also look at who we are without the story.

In my case, I see how I create my own overwhelm. I notice what I take on that’s not even mine, and what could be handed to someone else. I sit in the discomfort of not getting shit done, and find the ease of leaning into trusting what’s bigger than me.

I become someone who can see the changes, the desires, the next steps without fear. That leads me to choose differently, from a place where I trust myself, my gut, my higher power, and what feels right, rather than out of autopilot and putting out fires.

What’s yours?

The real issue was never time shortage. It was always the story. It tells you who you have to be. And if you’re not that person, it feels like something close to death.

That’s what’s scary, and keeps us in the story, but it’s okay.

And when you find your way underneath it, you stop leading from fear, from autopilot, from who you were told to be. You finally trust yourself.

With love,

Sarah

P.S. A Return to Self will guide you from self-awareness and fear to who you want to be and how you want to live. It’s everything I often wish I had the time to share with my clients in a private session, but (ha!) don’t quite have the time to.

I write regularly about aliveness, fear, and the inner choices that shape our lives. Get the next one in your inbox.