How does your schedule look at the moment? Do you have plenty of time for everything you want and need to do, or are you short on time? This can be a busy time of year, so if you’re low on time, it’s time to take stock.
Ignoring your needs because life got busy
If you’re like most people these days, you feel like you never have enough time to even cover the basics, never mind getting through your to-do list. Being starved for time seems normal. When you don’t have enough of it for things like mindfulness practice get pushed to the bottom of the list. or they may fall off of it entirely.
This is a mistake. Not only is it harder to resume working on your self-development when you have more time, but not setting aside time for yourself and your personal development makes you more stressed and less productive in general.
Humans need social time and work time, but they also need time to be themselves and do the things that make them happy. In this respect, you’re no different from any other animal. You can only ignore your needs for so long before it starts to cause you problems.
Make an appointment and stick to it
You can stop this issue from occurring right now. Set aside time in your schedule every week for “you” time. Pencil it into your diary if you’re very busy. Make it a standing appointment. It doesn’t matter when if it’s 9pm on Wednesday, 6:30-7:30 am on Friday mornings, or any other time. You just need to ensure that it’s workable for you.
Make this time non-negotiable and don’t allow anything to interfere with it other than a dire emergencies. Try to work in several blocks of time for yourself every week. They don’t have to be an hour-long each. Even 15 minutes or half an hour is better than nothing.
Making your time count
The time you have can be used for your mindfulness practice and anything else that you like to do for fun, from painting to video gaming, to shopping. Read a book. Take a bubble bath. The most important thing is that it’s something you want to do and something you like.
You’re just as important as everything else on your to-do list and if you fall apart from stress or overworking, nothing else on that list is going to get done either. Make a standing appointment with yourself and keep it religiously. You’ll be surprised how much better your life will get. You’ll feel happier and your mindfulness practice will improve too!
