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How to stay sane & protect your time

Making Decisions & Finding Passion

A couple of days ago a really lovely, bubbly chick I’ve be doing a course with suggested that we catch up for coffee.

And I said no.

And then I spent the proceeding hour feeling like a bitch.

Since becoming an entrepreneur, I’ve realised that my time is ridiculously precious. No longer do I waste a weekend lying on the couch (though maybe I should). When I bike to yoga or go for a walk, I call friend and family in NZ to maximise my time. I call one particular friend every time I’m emptying the dishwasher, it’s a running joke, he always laughs and asks me what’s wrong if there are no banging pots in the background.

I am so busy during the week that unless there’s an event on that I really want to go to (usually mindfulness related), I don’t often see friends, nor even bloody good chap, so that I can stay focussed. Which means that my socialising time is now limited to two days a week, and divided between a boyfriend, sex, spooning, friends, shit loads of coffees (well, tea, to be accurate), and sometimes two brunches in one day.

Add to that folding washing, sleeping in, household chores, building projects, preparing food for the week, and you’ve got a pretty to-do listey weekend.

The weekend just ain’t big enough for all that!

My whole life has become a bloody to do list!

I’m in the process of working out what to do about it, because while I absolutely love my work, I also have workaholic nothing-is-ever-enough tendencies, and this leads to a vast work life imbalance, which simply isn’t sustainable for a Bloody Good Life.

Luckily my work requires that I keep myself happy so that I can be calm and happy when coaching clients and writing inspiring content. This forced self-care is a godsend for someone like me. In this way, coaching is pretty much the best job ever because you are forced to walk your talk and find solutions when you aren’t.

My most recent solution is that I’m taking Project Self to Bali for two months in August! Two weeks off exploring Indo with Bloody Good Chap

(I know right, didn’t we just get back from the Philippines? Lucky bastards. I’m with you there.)

Following this there will be lots of yoga and focussing while working in a co-working space in Ubud. (Hopefully I’ll be able to suss some good wifi for my client sessions!)

And also some downtime and fun.

And more outdoor time – Melbourne is just so damn cold at the moment, I need to go outside in barefeet and do handstands, and just simply can’t do it in the cold at the moment!

But god, I’ve gone off track again.

I’m talking about time. And boundaries.

Literally, I have become like gollum with my time. Precioussss!!

Time is my most precious commodity (it should be yours too), and I no longer hand it out willy nilly. Not even to people I would enjoy hanging out with.

Because my sanity is more important than anything. More important that new friends, new opportunities, and way more important that appeasing FOMO. The term which, by the way, I hate. But it’s true we all have it.

So when this lovely girl suggested we catch up, normally I would have said “sure, yea, let’s”, all the while knowing that come the weekend I would panic, feel like I never have time to myself, and then cancel on her and/or never make a set plan in the first place.

But this course we were doing encourages unfiltered honesty and integrity – be authentic at ALL times, and don’t say you’ll do something unless you’ll do it.

I’m a person that often says ‘let’s catch up’ when I really want to shout – “I have no time, everyone and everything is taking my time,

arghhhhhh!”

Obviously that’s not true; it’s just a panicky mindset;

my time is my own (even more so I’m my own boss!). Yet my gollumy self feels like that sometimes when it comes to our precious.

So instead of overcommitting myself and adding this lovely new person into my life so as not to miss out on a great new person in my life and so as not to appear like a bitch, I recognised that the honest truth is that I don’t have room for new people in my life at the moment. Sure, I love meeting new people and hanging out at events, I just can’t possibly cram one more coffee date into my weekends!

Now this could sound really arrogant, like man, I have so many friends, but it’s not the case. I simply have some really awesome friends that I love to spend a good amount of time with, and I also need some down time for me, and I don’t want my weekends to become a to do list of back to back coffee catch ups and ticking off things here there and everywhere.

Because as soon as it’s like that, catch ups start to become things to tick off, rather than seeing people you love, and that shit is not good!

So, if you’re busy as hell, as we all are – start setting yourself some serious boundaries.

Don’t feel bad about not saying yes to everything.

Start practicing a few nos!

If you’re really honest with what’s going on for you (without over-explaining or apologising too much), no one will take it personally. And if they do, it’s actually not something you can do anything about anyway, that’s their shit. Either they take it personally or you try to please everyone and end up working yourself up to a great big bundle of stress that no one wants to be mates with anyway.

The choice is yours.

Ps — To learn more about regulating your emotions like the kind of legend that doesn’t throw coke at me, head over here to check out Bloody Good Life, an unconventional mind-taming program for overthinkers.

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