We only get so much time. Watching the minutes tick by without accomplishing anything can feel pretty painful.
Do you ever feel guilty while scrolling through your Facebook feed? As you lie on the couch, you keep hoping for one more great post, something interesting. In between the interesting posts, your wall shows mostly boring material, leaving you blank faced and bored as you wait for the one post grand enough to make all the time worthwhile. Actually finding the interesting post brings a unique pain, however, as you realize the amount of time you’ve spent scrolling.
Our culture tells us to be productive. The media tells us that most of us could achieve millions if we just worked hard enough. Most of us, after all, are really just down-on-our-luck millionaires, waiting for things to feel right. Problematically, life never feels slow and safe enough to kick back without some part of you going over the list of things you should be doing. If life is either work or play, this system makes work stressful and play… well, also stressful.
Setting goals actually makes this worse. One of two things happens when you set a goal – you either reach it or fail to reach it. Either way, most of your time will be spent working toward the goal, with a limited reward if you actually achieve it. If you fail to achieve it, you will instead face disappointment for your hard work. Neither of these scenarios ends up feeling satisfying, making it hard to get motivated to make new goals.
Instead of goals, I recommend systems. Journey before Destination. Rather than focusing on where you want to go, focus on how you want to get there. With this setup, you can appreciate all the time you spend working on something, knowing that doing so is in line with who you want to be and how you want to do things.
Creating systems is harder than creating goals, however. It doesn’t just mean determining where you want to go or what you want to have, it means learning who you want to be. This means looking inward, identifying your values and what matters most to you. Not things you want, but ways of being.
As you live more in line with your ideal self, “wasting time” means something different. If you live for goals, your time is either productive (working toward these goals) or unproductive (failing to work toward these goals). If you live for your value systems, however, your time is either fulfilling (in line with your values) or not.
Am I living the life I want to live?
Our bodies actually answer this question pretty quickly.
Ever get a gut feeling that says something is wrong? Our intuition picks up on a lot of details, sometimes telling us something doesn’t feel safe, other times that something doesn’t feel feel in line with our values. Use this feeling to start asking questions.
What feels wrong? Does your gut tell you to change something?
I encourage you to resist the urge to suppress this feeling. If it comes up while scrolling Facebook, pause scrolling Facebook. Sit with the feeling and ask yourself – do I want to do something else?
Keep asking questions. Reflect inward. If you ask questions whenever this feeling comes up, you can start honing in on what feels right, rather than just what feels wrong. Each time you feel this, your body offers you a chance to identify a currently unfulfilled value. Over time, this allows you to shape your life as you want it, embarking on a journey you will enjoy.