Own Your Time Before Time Owns You

Do you take ownership of your time, or does time own you?

Allow me to reframe it: are you living on your terms or on the demands of others? Can you tell the difference?

This isn't your bullshit "entrepreneur vs employee" style shit post, either, it's legitimately about how you're using your time. Let's take a deeper look into it.

Other people's emergencies are not your priorities. When you're in a constant, reactionary state, you're losing yourself to the needs of others. This happens because we're living our lives on someone else's terms.

What happens when we don't fill up our calendar with our needs and demands?

We are aimless and without focus. We're basically wandering around in the night with a blindfold on, hoping to stub our toe or smash our shin for a sign that we're headed in the right direction.

We lose ourselves in the demands and priorities of others. Sometimes, it's our way of making ourselves feel better for not doing what needs to be done for ourselves.

Others, it can be a savior or hero complex (which still equates to the same thing: avoidance of our own issues). It's a fine line between being a nice person, and sacrificing ourselves for the needs of others.

While some people may find this fulfilling, for a time, a lot of people wind up at the end of their lives with a head full of regrets, not the greatest health, and a list of wishes they'd do better if they could.

Now, this isn't a rant to say that we're going out and being assholes for the sake of being an asshole. That's never a solution. However, we must be mindful that we can't pour from an empty cup. We must fill our own cups first.

I'm a prime example of this, can I get personal with you? We all know my "hours" are 10am to 7pm, and outside of that i'm unavailable to spend time with myself.

Morning rituals include: green smoothie or drink, immune boosters (natural), workout 30-60 min, protein shake, meditation (may or may not be with visualization), journal, and learning something new to share with someone.

Evening rituals include: more reading, a walk or some light and decompressing movement, reviewing my day and journaling, letting go of regrets and orienting myself for tomorrow.

You can tell if I haven't been prioritizing myself and filling my own cup before dealing with the chaos of life.

I'm bouncing off the walls without my workout and may get a bit aggressive,I'm an emotional hand grenade without my meditations and journaling. After all, journaling is free therapy, you know what I mean? Without learning daily, I feel like I'm stagnating and not going anywhere. I start beating myself up and taking it out on the people around me that I feel less than worthy or motivated. Without journaling I have no focus, I'm scatterbrained like the mad hatter running around in circles trying to figure out which way is up and which is sideways.

Yet, when I prioritize myself, giving myself permission to fill my cup first; there is no blame, guilt or shame. I'm focused, on fire, energetic, compassionate, I am MYSELF in ALL of my glory, living my best life.

Yet, when I allow the burdens of others to become my own, I quickly fall apart and become less of the man I'm creating myself to be, and I move beyond the reach of living my best life.

This isn't exclusive to me, either. It happens to us all. The difference? Some of us don't know what it means to truly love and take care of ourselves, so they can't tell just how much emotional, mental, intuitional, spiritual and physical damage their doing to themselves. They're too lose in the needs and demands of others to even know who they are....

That doesn't sound like you, does it?

Afterthoughts

Are you ready for more in depth training?

Have you joined the Sovereign Collective yet? The collective is a (free) private community for executives and entrepreneurs who want to become the most elite version of themselves possible. It's a great place to get form reviews, assistance, share your insights/wins/breakdowns/breakthroughs and much more!

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I look forward to seeing you on the other side!