The idea that we can ‘manage time’ is one of the greatest illusions that exists today. I believe too many of us are focused on trying to manage this illusion, which can keep us stuck and dis-empowered.
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Trying to manage time causes us to create tighter schedules and experience more stress and pressure than is justified, which can create physical and emotional states that are debilitating, and not optimal in our lives. These states can negatively impact our livelihoods, our relationships and our sense of achievement and contribution in the world.
Think about it, time is a construct. It doesn’t exist outside of our own minds. Yes, we live in a world that measures seconds, minutes and hours and we have social constructs around how we ‘should’ behave in relation to these constructs (I wouldn’t suggest you tell your boss you are an hour late to work because time is a construct!), however, time itself if not a thing we can manage. I believe this is an important distinction which many of us do not make.
So, if we cannot manage time, what can we manage to ensure that our experience of time is a positive one? One answer to this question is that we can manage ourselves, and often we can do this more effectively to ensure that our experience of time is highly productive whilst being entirely stress free.
What is self-management?
I would describe self-management as the ability to be able to take care of oneself, to take responsibility for one’s own thinking, feeling, speaking and behaving - our four superpowers! Self-management is a skill and because it is a skill it can be learned. When we take full responsibility for our superpowers, we find that our relationship to time improves, we no longer experience things such as stress, frustration, pressure, and procrastination.
Self-management is the ability to be self-aware of the choices that we make, to become intentional about how we spend our time rather than attentional. We become really clear about how we want to spend our heartbeats which empowers us to become highly focused on what matters to us the most.
Are you ready to unleash your highest potential?
Addressing the psychology behind our behaviour...
Often our common habits and behaviours, such as procrastination, being overly responsible for others, saying yes when we mean no, and perfectionism to name a few, can negatively impact our self-management. Often the shortfall for many 'time management' courses is that they teach a new skill such as “use this prioritisation tool”, however, they do not address the psychology (the meaning driving the behaviour) to bring about lasting transformation. Therefore, the participant walks away with a short-lived enthusiasm (much like a new year’s resolution) which quickly turns into a sense of failure as they fall into their old behaviours once again.
Meaning drives performance...
Think about it for a moment, the meanings you hold drive your performance. If something is meaningful to you, then you are more motivated to engage in new habits and behaviours, if it is not meaningful to you then you are likely to put it on the back burner or dis-engage entirely. Much like time, meaning doesn’t exist outside of our minds, we make meaning, therefore we can create the meanings which are going to serve us in our lives.
Training with Modo...
At Modo Coaching & Training we offer time self-management training which is at the leading edge of the human potential movement, to ensure that you can effectively manage yourself in relation to time and never feel the pressure of the clock ticking again. At Modo we focus on training new skills using highly effective models, whilst also addressing the psychology (meanings) that you hold in relation to your time self-management, which effectively increases your performance.
Our training does not offer you more time or fewer demands; rather it focuses on empowering you to greater levels of healthy responsibility, prioritising, delegating and effective decision-making, whilst building your meaning to make the required change. It is designed to identify your ineffective ways of ‘being and doing’ so that you have a greater understanding of which choices are valuable and which are not to achieving your desired outcomes.
Conclusion
If you would like grow your capacity to self-manage and participate in a highly engaging, emotionally intelligent learning experience, contact Modo today and ask about our Self-Management Training.
