Time As a Currency, Can It Be?
Danielle Ford, Mindrise Coach
When you hear the word currency, what comes to mind? For many of us, the first and maybe only thing that comes to mind is money. As I’m sure many of you were, for most of my life I was taught that money is the key to happiness and success. What I didn’t know however, was that the key to happiness actually comes from within and success isn’t defined by your paycheck nor your title.
You’ve probably heard the old adage “time is money.” I used to believe this meant that the more time I spent doing something, the more money I would make, but when I realized that there’s no math equation there, I found myself thinking there was never enough time in the day to do all of the things on my list… or enough time to make “enough” money. Showing up in that place of lack can leave you feeling fatigued, burnt out and maybe even in a downward spiral, because how much is enough anyway? Unless, that is, you start to think about time a little differently, like I have recently.
No matter how we slice it, in this world, there are 24 hours in each day. I’d like to invite you to explore how you’re using those 24 hours. Grab a pen and paper, get into a comfortable space and give yourself 15 minutes. Are you ready? Let’s do this!
First give yourself 5 minutes to write a list of how you would spend your ideal day – just write down every single thing that comes to mind as it comes in. Don’t force it, don’t judge it, just let it flow.
Done? Awesome, take a look at the beautiful day you’ve created.
For this next part, give yourself a few minutes to reflect on how living that incredible day would make you feel. Again, write every single thing you think of – peace, bliss, alive, light, adventurous, energized, etc. Just get it all out on paper. Easy right? Here comes the tough part…
Write down what your typical day looks like now – how much time do you spend eating, exercising, working, being creative, with family, alone, sleeping, etc. Next, Assign a dollar amount to each hour of your day – an amount for sleeping, play/recreation, family or friend time, spirituality, eating, exercising, etc.
Now total up the dollar amount for each part of your life and take a look. Where are you spending your time (money)? Where are you spending too much? Where would you like to be spending more? Are there shifts, even small ones, that you can make today to balance out the way you spend your day? Start to explore your relationship with time a little more deeply. If you have the same amount of time each day, how can you choose to use it to serve you?
After all, we only have one go-around here and giving away our time, our energy and our peace to any person, place or job that isn’t serving us or the world at large, is a level of expensive that we just can’t afford.