Making time for yourself feels hard sometimes. But making time for your own transformation is critical to your happiness.

For the most part, the problems people have come down to a few common issues. 

One of them is that they don’t have enough time.

People are afraid of time. 

Yes, time!

Or, more accurately, people are afraid of committing to spend their time. They are in time scarcity.

I get this. People everywhere are rushing around wildly, talking about all the time they don’t have. Running from appointment to appointment, heads down, frantically scrolling through texts and emails, multitasking, and juggling all the things.

And what happens in the middle of all that hustle and bustle?

You forget that you control time. Not the other way around.

As a coach, I see this all the time in my practice. Especially for those who are newly indoctrinated to the world of coaching – those who aren’t yet aware that as humans, we have full agency over the choices we make regarding time and, well, ALL other things.

When we discuss changing a clients’ life and how that’s going to work, they are 100% “in”. They’re completely committed to making the changes of which we’ve just painted a bright, vibrant vision. It’s exciting. It feels possible. 

What’s interesting is that when I share the timeframe of my most popular program, which is six months, they freeze. 

Oh my god. It’s that damn word, time commitment again.

The fear is time. I don’t know if I’ll have time to do this work.

“I would be 100% in if it weren’t such a long commitment.” 

It’s not a shock to me because I understand how the human brain works. But it’s my job to make sure that the people I talk to understand how their (very human) brain works as well.

So let’s dig into it. 

Step away for a minute and hear this again:

“I would be committed to my own transformation if it didn’t take so much time.”

I mean, come on. That sounds pretty ridiculous when you think about it, right?

You are putting your own perception of time ahead of changing your life. You’re putting time above your happiness. You’re putting time before living the life you’ve always dreamed of living.

So I feel compelled to address this because we always want to love our reasons for saying no to something, and I really don’t believe the reason not enough time gives each of us the respect we deserve as incredibly unique, valuable human beings on the planet.

So let’s just call it what it is.

One, it’s not that you don’t have time. 

You’re not making time. It’s not a priority for you.

Two, you’re not valuing yourself high enough. If you were, YOU would trump time.

Let’s address number one first. 

Of course, you don’t have extra time. No one walks around with extra time on their hands. We use all of it that we give ourselves.

It’s like when you have a baby. Your life is already busy, right? There’s not really a good time to have a baby from purely a time perspective. But we have babies because we want them and we’re willing to make time for them.

So you add this living, breathing, fully dependent thing, AND you make time for it. At first, it’s hard – overwhelming, really – and you’re tired. But eventually, you get in a rhythm and you figure it out. You make it work. You don’t HAVE the time, but you are willing to work to create the time.

Also, time is a mental construct. If it weren’t, everyone would be equally productive. But we’re not. Everyone has different levels of productivity and different ways of prioritizing their to-do lists. We all know that person who runs circles around us and seems to have time for everything and still keep it together. But there’s also that person we know that can’t seem to get anything done for the life of them. 

Bottom line is that we make time for what feels important to us.

This leads me to point number two. 

You’re not valuing yourself enough. 

When you’re willing to put your happiness, feeling alive, loving your life ahead of things like a job you don’t love, a relationship that doesn’t fill you up, menial tasks on your to-do list, or things that aren’t really “you” in the first place, you are not valuing YOU.

Let me say that again. 

You are not valuing YOU.

You have to value yourself in order to live that big, awesome life that you dream of.

You have to do the hard things to be who you are meant to be. You have to do things differently than you’ve always done in order to stand in your truth.

What does that mean? 

It quite simply means that in order to live the life that you want to live, you’ll need to change how you live it. And you can’t change your life using the same thinking that created the life you have now. 

Like my good buddy Albert Einstein said, you cannot solve your problems using the same thinking that created them.

Touché.

Of course it feels hard to make time for yourself. 

You’ve likely not made yourself a priority before. If that’s the case, you might have some limiting beliefs like:

I might be judged if I take too much time out for myself

Others should come first

Self-care is selfish

I need to show others I love them more than I love myself

Putting myself first is selfish

It’s my job to take care of everyone 

I’m responsible for others’ feelings/happiness

Strong people sacrifice their needs to meet the needs of others

My circumstances control ME. I don’t have any control over THEM.

Others depend on me and can’t survive without me

Others are worth more than I am

If those sound familiar, congratulations! You’re normal.

But there is a cost to putting yourself low on your own totem pole, and it turns out it’s huge.

As author Brene Brown has discovered in her research on wholehearted living, loving yourself more than you love others is a critical step to seeking happiness and fulfillment.

In fact, she says it’s impossible to love someone else more than you love yourself. You can only love someone else as much as you love yourself. And taking care of yourself is the path to fulfillment in your work and in your life. 

It is also a gift to others.

When your needs are met and you feel good about yourself, it’s much easier to elevate the needs of others in front of your own. It’s easier to give when your cup is full. And when your cup is full, it’s also easier to be clear about which things can be taken off your plate, or kicked down the priority list by a couple of rungs.

Putting yourself first can actually save time as well. When you are filled up and ready to go, you’re much more likely to be effective and efficient. Your head will be clear. You’ll be able to make better decisions. You’ll have better relationships. Better communications. You’ll have more fun, and more.

You’ll be able to make strides in changing what isn’t working in your life. 

But to do that, you’ve got to shift your thinking as it relates to time in order to make the changes necessary for you to love your life.

So, instead of subscribing to the thought, I might be judged if I take time out or spend money on my happiness, you may want to try on this for size:

I might be judged, but I’d rather be happy living the life I dream of than miserable looking good to someone else.

Instead of the thought, putting myself first is selfish, try, everyone deserves to have their needs met, including ME!

And, instead of thinking others depend on me and can’t survive without me, think this instead: they don’t have to survive without me forever, but they sure can while I’m taking care of myself. And I need to take care of myself because I’m important too.

You’re worth it. You deserve it.

So next time you find yourself faced with the decision to do something that could shift your life and bring you closer to living the life you dream of, pause.

Pause and ask yourself what you’re saying NO to if you say yes to saving the time.

Are you saying no to happiness? Better relationships? A better mindset about your job or career? A new career even? Purpose, joy, and fulfillment?

So stop saying no to the life that lights you up and brings you joy. It’s yours for the taking.

And start saying YES to yourself.

Learn how to create a life you LOVE (and make time for yourself!) in my FREE guide, How to Create a Life You Love:

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