Real quick: an exciting announcement.
I’m giving away THREE smallsteppers.com memberships. Count ‘em. Three.
Launching and running smallsteppers.com has been an incredible experience. And members have been telling me it’s been a great experience for them too…In fact, below is a testimonial. But…to be entered to win a free membership, all you gotta do is reply to this blog post, tag someone from my facebook page or Instagram page, and/or comment on my recent YouTube vlog (btw, I put up new videos every Tues. & Thurs–subscribe!).
We’ll pick three of you and you’ll get to experience this ground-breaking twelve-week program first-hand! Here’s the testimonial and see below for this week’s blog post!
Testimonial:
“The Small Steppers Program has helped me remove the guilt from my self improvement efforts. I, like everyone else, am super busy and sometimes it is just nice to know that I can do as small a step as I need to, something that fits in with my life, and it will become part of my normal very soon. Then, and only then, I can move on to adding another step. It all adds up and contributes to a nice, positive mindset and “wall of behaviors”, without pressure or shame. Also, I love Sid’s conversational way and his easy ability to answer every question at the Live Q&A sessions with an in-depth response. I could keep writing, but will leave it at that for now. :)” A.M.
Good luck and now, on to the blog…
~
Time.
Most of us (me definitely included), feel we don’t have enough of it. Or at least not enough free time. But before I get specifically to ‘time’…
Here are a few examples of what can prevent people from making long-lasting/real changes in their lives:
- They don’t exercise because they don’t have an hour to go to a gym, much less the time it takes to drive there and back.
- They don’t eat healthier because it takes too much time to learn new recipes, the recipes are too frickin’ complicated anyways, and eating better just takes more work.
- They don’t meditate because who has the time to sit on a pillow in front of a candle and/or Buddha and/or 1980’s wave machine for 45 minutes?
- They don’t learn to play guitar because they don’t have 30 minutes a day to practice, or an hour once a week for a lesson.
In other words, we have an idea in our minds already of what it takes to do certain things. And if we don’t think we have enough free time to do them, we do nothing. No healthy eating, no exercise, no meditation, no guitar. It is our pre-conceived notions of what something is that can keep us from doing that thing. If we only had more time.
Here’s what will twist your noodle:
Same thing can be said about ‘free time.’ We even already have an idea of what quantity of time ‘free time’ must be in order to be frickin’ free. (That sentence hurt my head).
Free time? Oh, it’s at least half an hour? Or four hours, or a full day off for crying out loud.
And so, our conclusion?
If the time we do have doesn’t hit the right quantity, we really just don’t have any free time.
So not only do we feel stressed from feeling like we don’t have enough free time do do what will make us happier and healthier, we’re unhappy because we’re not doing the things themselves. We’re not exercising, or eating healthy etc.
Tough spot.
Or not…if…
We understand that all those ideas we have of what something is and how much time it takes are ALL made up. Human created. Fiction. Fluff.
Which means: we can re-define virtually everything.
Like this:
Eating healthy doesn’t have to be about new recipes or a ton of time in the kitchen.
Exercise doesn’t have to be an hour at a gym, or frankly, be anywhere near a gym, or even more frankly, involve a trainer named Jim.
Meditation doesn’t have to be 45 minutes (although, to be truthful, may actually have to involve a 1980’s wave machine).
Learning how to play guitar doesn’t have to mean 30 minutes of practice a day nor one lesson a week.
And…
Free time doesn’t have to be any actual, fixed amount of time.
Understanding this, free time can be driving in your car (snacking on carrots and celery), standing in line at the grocery store (thinking of an idea for a poem or story), sitting in the waiting room at the dentist (deep breathing/meditating). Waiting for your coffee to brew (doing squats in the kitchen).
Free time is simply time you devote to, wait for it, anything YOU want to do or think about.
Oh, how much we can accomplish if we liberate ourselves from these definitions and fixed quantities.
Thing is?
Every one of you reading this has free time. It just may not look like you think it should look. It may be a bit scattered around rather than clumped all together, but free time it still is.
Free time which can be what you want it to be.
In other words:
We all have the time. We just need to take it.
