Timely
Time. It’s a thing that we attempt to enjoy, manage, race against, and slow down. It’s something we can absolutely hate or absolutely love. How we use it determines whether we experience joy or pain. In regards to goals, it’s a guideline we use to track our progress.
Today we’ll be discussing why the element of time plays such an important role in achieving goals.
Time is a precious resource. Time is a component of life that can never be recovered or taken back. If you utilize it wisely during the process of accomplishing your goals, you will have a much smoother, more efficient, and ultimately enjoyable experience.
Definition of Time
According to the dictionary, time is defined as:
- The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future regarded as a whole.
- A point of time as measured in hours and minutes past midnight or noon.
Time is Not Unlimited
Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you could live forever? The possibilities of what you’d be able to accomplish and experience would be virtually limitless. Although it’s interesting to entertain the notion of having an infinite amount of the most precious resource, time, we are all bound by the constraints of a limited time on earth.
In the cosmic scheme of events, our lifetimes barely register as a blip on the timeline. In this limited duration, we are given the opportunity to utilize our time however we choose. It would be wise, whatever our objectives, to use time as effectively as possible.
That being said, there must be a purpose to achieve or a goal to attain to make the time count.
Know What You Value
What is considered valuable in life varies from person to person. For some, raising a family is most important. For others, career, money, or travel may be the most important. Some may be happy surfing every day while others will only be happy if they can afford the huge house up on the hill or command the respect or adoration of millions of people.
If the aim is to live the ideal lifestyle as you define it, it would be wise to use the limited precious resource of time to work towards that goal. To determine if what you say you desire is what you truly desire, ask yourself the following questions:
Who is the person you want to be?
What sort of lifestyle do you want to live?
When would you like to achieve your goal?
Where would you be, what physical location would you like to be at after achieving your goal?
Why is it important to you to achieve your goal?
How will you go about achieving your goal? What is your plan?
In order for you to have a clear direction on how to best utilize your time, you would have to have your goals clearly defined. By setting a schedule and timeline for yourself and consistently reviewing your progress, you demonstrate to yourself that you’re truly dedicated to moving towards that goal with your consistent, and relevant actions.
Time-Bound Goals
After identifying your goals and making sure they’re specific, measurable, actionable, and relevant, you’re ready to set realistic timelines to achieve your aspirations. Setting these timelines gives you the best shot at achieving your goal. In case things don’t work out, you’re still able to recover and pivot towards the desired outcome. Your timeline should have a start date and end date. This allows you to break down large tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks to ensure you put in the work it takes to achieve your goal on time.
You’ve only got 24 hours in a day. If you’re serious, truly serious about putting in the work to achieve your goal, you need to have tasks prioritized to ensure trivial tasks don’t overtake what needs to be done to achieve your long-term goals.
Whatever you’ve set your timeline at to achieve your ideal goal, give yourself a reasonable and realistic margin of error to allow for…well…humanity. Unforeseen obstacles and circumstances may arise that you’ll be forced to address in order to move forward. It could be anywhere from 10% to 25% time on top of your additional timeline. With this newly updated time, define the milestones you’ll need to reach by specific intervals to get a pulse on your progress. By tracking your progress at regular intervals, you’ll be able to see if you’re behind, on, or ahead of schedule and adjust accordingly.
For instance, let’s say you want to save $6000 over the next year to pay a down payment for a car. After your living, food, utilities, recreation, and other monthly expenses, you’ll want to set aside $500 a month for the next 12 months to achieve your goal of $6000.
However, just to be safe, you’ll probably want to add 25% to that timeline, so 3 more months, just to give yourself some space in case unforeseen events or bills come up.
You can check every three months that you’ve set aside $1500. If you’re behind, you know that you’ll have to save a little more in the following months to catch up. If you’re on track, wonderful. If you’re ahead of schedule, see if you can save even more so you have a larger down payment to reduce your monthly payments on your new car.
By setting a timeline to achieve your goal, setting up regular intervals to track your progress, and having precise, measurable milestones to reach, you set yourself up for successful results.
Where you don’t want to be is 12 months down the road trying to scramble for $6000 because you didn’t have a plan of action to save for your new car. Or, you would just have to give up on your goal because you just couldn’t bring yourself to create a plan and stick to it.
The Nature of Time Keeps Everyone In Sync
When working with a group of people, time is what keeps people together. Time is objective and definite, giving everyone in a group an undeniable metric to work off of.
Goals are set, and so are scheduled progress meetings. By scheduling these meetings and deadlines, a space is created for communication. Because everyone is there, and proper expectations have been set, everyone in a group is able to communicate openly and transparently. Feedback can be given between team members to move the team forward toward the shared goal.
Utilizing a bit of time each day to keep everyone in sync and make sure everyone is on the same page builds trust if everyone knows they are supported, heard, and appreciated.
Time Makes Decisions for You
“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time”, is a quote from Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace.
What a powerful statement! The question you have to ask yourself is, “Are these warriors working for me or against me?” If you have a plan with a set timeline and you’re putting in consistent effort in relevant tasks, these warriors are working for you to help you achieve your goal. It’s as if you have a team working with you to help accomplish your goals.
However, if you have no plan, no timeline, are not taking consistent action, and not checking your progress, then patience and time can be the most ruthless and unforgiving warriors you’ve ever gone up against in your life.
It has been said that “time makes all decisions for you and time always says no.” Whatever you are after, whatever you’re hoping to achieve, attain, or experience, if you’re not putting in the effort, time will ultimately always deny you. This denial could come in the form of resources, opportunities, or physical or even mental health.
I’m sure you’ve experienced something like this before, where you failed to plan or take action and you lost out on what could have been a life-changing opportunity. Everyone has. The key is to not let time slip away and to really get a hold of how you spend your time so you live as rich and fulfilling a life as possible.
Time is Relative
When asked to describe his Theory of Relativity, Albert Einstein said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That’s relativity.”
An hour is a set unit of time and nothing changes that fact. However, depending on how that unit of time is being spent and what the context is, that hour can take on very different meanings.
You could spend an hour at the club and the time will fly by but if you’ve been sitting there for the last hour waiting for the receptionist to call your name at the doctor’s office, time seems to slow to a crawl.
When you are setting goals and taking action on those goals, the tedious nature of working through details, trying to get things right, or learning things can make the time seem quite slow-moving. It may even seem like barely any progress is being made.
However, the time spent putting forth a sincere effort working on a worthwhile goal is more than just the time being spent at that moment. The knowledge and experience you’re gaining start to compound along with the knowledge you’ve already gained. This expands your knowledge set and improves your ability to bring these lessons to other areas of your life.
Not to say that time spent in the club is good, bad, right, or wrong. Everything has its own rewards. You’re honing your social skills and dance moves at the club. However, the price for that may include a hangover the following day. If this is something that is acceptable to deal with, and you find value in that, by all means, every activity has its place.
Regrets
At the end of the day, you’ll rarely regret the things you’ve attempted and failed at but you will always regret the things that you’ve never tried at all.
Regret is such a painful emotion. This is because inherent in the context of regret, there was a result or outcome you really cared about that didn’t come to fruition because of your actions or lack of action. You know, as much as you wish with all your heart, you can’t turn back time. You very rarely get a do-over. On the same token, your mistakes and failures often turn out to be your greatest teachers, expanding your context and preparing you for success in future endeavors.
Our hope is that you understand, as early as possible, time truly is precious. Take a commanding, active role in setting meaningful goals for yourself and work hard to achieve them. No matter what, you will never regret working hard for something that is meaningful to you!
Conclusion
Author and Speaker Michael Altshuler said it best when he shared, “The bad news is that time flies. The good news is that you’re the pilot.”
Today we discussed the concept of time as it relates to goals. Because you don’t have an unlimited amount of this precious resource, it’s important to understand what you value most in your life. This will guide you in how to most effectively set your goals, and spend your time living a life that’s most fulfilling to you.
By managing your time and setting start and end dates for achieving your goals, you intentionally and purposefully utilize your time. Not only do you avoid having time to make unwanted decisions for yourself, but you bring time and patience to your side to create the results you want!
Finally, we implore you to start making the effort to manage your time. Regrets are a part of life but not all of them have to be necessary if you plan and take action confidently!
Thanks for joining us today and see you next time on The Modern Wisdom Guide.