Excuses Stop Here!

Time would have to be humankind's best friend, yet also our worst enemy. Time is one of the most precious things we have in our life, yet it is also one of the most unkindest things to us. Time gives us opportunity and moments of happiness, yet it also steals them away just as fast. Time provides us with many happy memories, yet also leaves us with many regrets. Time is one of those things we can choose to view either in a positive or negative light, or even both, as I have demonstrated above. Haven't we enough negativity in life though, than to add yet another thing on that list? As humans, we have a bad habit of judging people and things, and time is another victim of that. The truth is, time is blamed unfairly, and all because we just have to find an outlet to lay our blame and excuses on, for all our mistakes, errors, and missed opportunities, rather than being accountable and taking ownership for them. Time is something that none of us know exactly how much we have been granted to live through. Each and every one of us have an expiry date, and it's unavoidable. Some of us are blessed with an abundance of years, whilst some lives are unfairly cut short, but we can't dwell on what we can't control. When our time is up, it's up! What we can control is what we do with that time we are alive, and we do that by making every day count, and living each day like it is our last. Most of us don't live that way however. We live with this foolish belief that we will live forever, or we have plenty of time left to do the things we want to do in life, and in doing so, we start taking time for granted. We begin wasting away these precious days, simply muddling through life, doing what we are told by others, pleasing others, and applying our energy to things that aren't of great importance, rather than to the people and things that should be a priority. It's that mentality of living life and believing there will always be a tomorrow, when that is never ever guaranteed.

Making the most of our time, and living our days productively, means living life in happiness, satisfaction, fulfillment, success, prosperity, and with love and purpose. The pathway to such a life all starts with our mindset and our attitude. We need to have a positive mindset, and be focused on, and committed to, achieving our goals in life. We need to have the right attitude and values by treating others with respect, kindness, care, generosity, and support, whilst being someone committed and hard working. In order to be fulfilled and happy in life, we need to be uplifting and helping others, and the beauty of it is, it's such an easy and enjoyable action to do. The satisfaction we gain from helping and uplifting others is on a whole new level, because we can visually see the positive impact we are having on others, and the world. We should always be allocating time to be helping, supporting, encouraging, and giving to others. Living with these values can be something we can incorporate into our work, as we want to be looking for ways in which we can be of service to others, and how we can add value to their life. It's not about pleasing others, but it's about adding benefit to their life, inspiring them to achieve their goals, and be striving for a life of happiness and success also. The first reaction that most people will have to this recommendation of allocating time to be helping others, is they will laugh and say "I don't even have the time to get my own things done, let alone find the time to help others". Right there is why so many people fail to achieve happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment in life, and that's because selfishness leads to destruction, not success.

The other aspect as to why so many people fail to achieve happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment in life, is because they fail to strive for their goals. Some people don't even establish goals for themselves at all. Many start the journey towards their goals, but either give up because it gets too hard, or they become tired of the constant challenges and failures, or they just fail to apply the time needed to invest in their goals. Life is just so full on and there's always so much to do, so what do people turn to as their reason for why they don't pursue their goals? Time, of course. The truth is, it's not really a reason, it's an excuse! It's why time is unfairly labelled as the perfect scapegoat by so many people, and why it is always seen as a negative, rather than a blessing. The reality is, there is ample time in our day, but we choose to direct our energy, attention, and effort into the wrong things. In fact, many of us believe that we are flat out busy, and don't have time for anything else, when in reality, we are actually lazy. That laziness can come from activities such as sitting on the couch watching television or Netflix, or playing computer games, or spending time scrolling through posts on social media, or sleeping excessively, or chatting on the phone with our friends, or any of these such non-productive activities. Sure it's nice to have some downtime, but we can't use time as our excuse to not be working on achieving our goals, when we are not truly committed to the actions. The most successful people in the world have 24 hours in their day, just like us, yet they manage, and have managed, to use their time effectively to create the life they desired. They never diverted blame on not having enough time to work towards their goals, they just remained committed to the actions, and prioritized them each day.

The blunt truth is, if you're not achieving your goals in life, nor are finding the satisfaction, happiness, and fulfillment, that you desire, then it may be because you are lazy. It's not necessarily because you are being lazy on purpose, but you are simply not being driven by the goals you are seeking to achieve. There's no motivation that is clicking you into gear to want to work to achieve your goals. The first thing to do is acknowledge this. Admit that you haven't been truly focusing on your goals, and instead have been doing activities that are providing instant short term satisfaction. Accept responsibility and take ownership for your actions. Stop passing the blame on time, or even blaming other people or circumstances. The next step is to get clear on your main goal, but not just any run of the mill goal, it needs to be one that is truly life transforming, and one in which you are so desperate to achieve, that you have a strong internal emotional attachment to it. It needs to be a goal that drives you, that will have you working towards it, no matter the challenges, failures, and setbacks, you encounter along the journey towards it, and one in which you are clear as to the reason why you want to achieve it. You need to have a strong enough reason behind why you want to achieve that goal, otherwise there's not going to be any fuel to drive you. These such goals normally take a few years, so the next step is to then break that goal down into actions, and I mean breaking it down into 12 months, 6 months, 1 month, 1 week, and then down to daily actions. Don't base your progress on how close you are to achieving the goal itself, but base your success on completing the actions listed on your daily action plan. If you complete those actions each day, that's a win, but in order for those actions to be completed, you need to be allocating time to do them. Don't just allocate time though, prioritize it!

The next step is to eliminate and isolate. What I mean by that is you need to eliminate any possible distractions, and isolate yourself away from any possible distractions. The biggest distraction is, of course, our phone. As hard as it may be to do, we just need to shut our phone off for a period of the day, so we are not tempted to read an email that comes through, or view that notification on social media, or view that text message, or answer that call from one of our friends. Shut yourself off from the world and focus on the actions that are working towards your goals, so that way you are isolated away from the temptation of any distractions, allowing you to better maximize the time to work on those important actions. Tell others in your household that you are not to be disturbed, and make sure it's your time! Finally, take a look at your current daily schedule, write down all the tasks that fill your day. Break it down to even as little as 10 minute intervals. What are you doing in each of those 10 minutes? Once you've done this, identify the time consuming and time wasting actions. Are you spending too much time at your job? Are you allocating time for television, gaming, Netflix? Are you sleeping more than 9 hours? Put your daily schedule to the test. Do what you would normally do each day, and take note of all the times you spend doing unproductive things, such as browsing social media, watching television, sitting idle doing nothing. Every minute doing such things is deducting away from time that could be spent working towards your goals. If you're job is consuming more than a third of your day, then perhaps it's time to be looking for a more flexible work option. You're job might be helping you make ends meet, but it's not helping make you a better life.

The simple thing is, time should be our friend. There is ample time in a day to get the tasks of the most important things done, it's just a matter of how we better manage our time, and where we actually apply our time to. Write down maybe 20 daily tasks you do in a normal day, and then highlight what your 5 priorities are on that list, then ask yourself, are these really the most important things to focus on in my life, and are they going to help me create a future blessed with success, happiness, satisfaction, and fulfillment? Your happiness, your health, your goals, and your family, should always be your main priorities in life, because it's these four aspects that determine the quality of your future. Each and every day, your schedule should always include actions that are focusing on these. If you can't find the time to exercise, eat properly, spend quality time with your family, work on your goal's actions, and be investing in personal development, then you're making excuses, and those excuses stop here! Enough of blaming time, people, and circumstances! If you truly want to live a life rich with such wonderful blessings of happiness, success, fulfillment, satisfaction, and prosperity, then you will stop finding excuses, and you will start prioritizing the actions that are leading you to such a future, every single day! It's time to prioritize yourself!

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