Making the Most of Your Time

Most of us realize how precious our life is and how lucky we are to have this earth life experience: to be alive, to have our body, to have this time on earth. We know that our time here is a gift from a loving heavenly father, and we want to use that gift in the right way.

But… All of these beautiful thoughts about the importance of our earth life experience can inadvertently create a lot of stress for us when it comes to how we use our time.

We have a lot of judgment and criticism for ourselves in the way we're using our time and that we could have or should have done it better. But how do we think differently about the time we have on earth and the way we use that time?

Truly making the most of your time starts with a few shifts to your perspective.

Time is 100% out of our control

We can’t actually manage time. We can’t change, delay, interrupt, or redirect it. Time just IS. The only things we really have control over in this life are our own minds, our own experiences, our own feelings, and actions, and results. 

Just like anything else, when we’re talking about managing our time, we’re really talking about managing our mind and deciding on purpose what we're going to think about our time. 

You’re always using your time the way you want

I know that might not feel true. You might be thinking, “No, April, I have all these things that I have to do, and if I had my way, I wouldn't be spending my time doing them.” It feels like your time is acting upon you, and you’re left scrambling to use the leftover scraps in the ways that you want to. 

But it’s so important that you understand how much agency you have. 

Because when we look at the results of our life, it's just an accumulation of the actions we've taken. And if you don’t feel like you’re making the most of your time, you get to do it differently. 

You’ll Learn:

• Two empowering ways to think differently about time (hint: it’s not linear, and it’s not running out)
• The impact of your thoughts on your perception of time, and examples to shift them
• A comparison of time and money to illustrate how you always get to choose what you want
• Why there’s really no wrong way to use your time 

Episode Transcript

Welcome to the 100% Awesome Podcast with April Price. You might not know it, but every result in your life is 100% because of the thought you think. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome.

Hello Podcast Universe! Welcome to Episode 174 of the 100% Awesome Podcast, I'm April Price, and I want to welcome you to the podcast today. I am so glad you are here, it is the first day of September, which means it's fall. Probably most of your kids have started school and it means that for me I am getting very, very close to the big endurance event that I have been training for all year long, and I'm sure that you will all be glad to hear the end of it. Like I when I started that event, I promised myself that I wasn't going to talk about it a lot in the podcast because I thought that would be really annoying and it seems like it's such a big part of my life, it comes up all the time. So, I'm sorry about, you know what, you guys are almost done, I am almost through training and you are almost done hearing about it.

So, three weeks from today, actually, I will be at the foot of Whistler Mountain in British Columbia. I can hardly believe it. That kind of is so exciting and kind of so terrifying at the same time, but at that point, you know, three weeks from today, I will probably be feeling a lot of fear and doubt, along with the excitement of finally, you know, being at the start line. And I have trained really, really hard. I have climbed I figured out like hundreds of thousands of vertical feet at this point in preparation for this and believe it or not, after all that work, my brain is still unsure if I can do this. My brain still tells me that I might not have what it takes when I have a hard work and my brains like, see, see? You're never going to make it and listen, this inner voice, this lovely inner critic that we all have that is constantly doubting us and telling us that we might fail or we might be disappointed or we might be humiliated in this case, honestly, because there are a lot of you who know about this goal of mine, I don't make it to the top like all of you are going to know about that, right?

But this inner critic is a part of every one of our human experiences and so many times that voice or the fear of hearing the criticism of that voice keeps us from the things that we really want to be doing. Keeps us from trying things, right? But I want you to know that that inner critic does not have to be the loudest voice in your life. It doesn't have to be so loud that it keeps you from the things you really want. It doesn't have to keep you from trying. And so, next Friday, just so you know, next Friday, September 9th, at 11 a.m. Pacific, I am teaching a free workshop all about your inner critic to help you understand why it is there and also how to quiet it, how to silence it enough to allow you to do all the brave, bold things that you came to Earth to do. And you are all invited, every one of you. It is a free class. So, if you have ever wanted to work with me, this is a really great way to do it.

I'm going to give you my best tools for quieting your inner critic so that you can go out there and you can like be at the start line of whatever it is you want to create in your life so that you can conquer the mountains in your life. All right, so you're all invited. You can sign up at my website, Aprilpricecoaching.com. There's a bar right at the top, you just click that and you can get registered or you can text the word critic to 66866. And that will allow you to register as well. So, come invite your friends, you are going to feel so much better about that mean critical voice inside your head, okay? You're going to feel better about it than ever before. And you're going to know exactly what to do and how to handle it when it shows up because it will, right? You're human, it's going to show up, okay?

So, speaking of that inner critic, one of the places that I find our inner critic shows up for us is in the way that we use our time, right? I think that most of us, like we really understand and realize how precious our life is, how lucky we are to have this Earth-life experience, to be alive, to have our body, to have this time on Earth. And we know that like we want to do something with it, right? That this time on Earth is supposed to mean something, that we're here to use it up. And we know that our time here is a gift from a loving Heavenly Father, and we want to use that gift in the right way. And all of these beautiful thoughts about the importance of our Earth life experience can actually inadvertently, I think, create a lot of stress for us when it comes to how we are using our time. We have a lot of judgment for ourselves.

We have a lot of criticism for ourselves in the way we're using our time and that we could have done it better we should have done it better, and like sometimes thinking and understanding that the time on Earth is precious can actually make us really stressed, and anxious, about how we're using it. And we could have a lot of thoughts about how we're probably doing it incorrectly, that we're wasting or mismanaging it somehow and that, you know, that makes us sort of like slothful, ungrateful servants, right? That like God has given us this gift and we, like, wasted it and listen I spent most of my life thinking this. I was just like, oh, my gosh, I've been given the most precious gift, and I've spent all this time squandering it.

And so today I really want to talk to you about those thoughts and talk to you about the way you think about your time and not only the time that you have in the present moment, but the time that you have used in your life, and that is still waiting to be used, okay? And like this is really a time of year when most of us have new schedules. A lot of your kids are heading back to school and we have new routines. We create new schedules, we arrange, rearrange the calendar. We organize the way we're going to use our time. We sign up for things, right? We send our kids up for things and and we start divvying out this precious resource of time. And so, I thought this would be a really good time to talk about time and your thoughts about it, okay? And give you some shifts and just have you think about it differently.

I recently did a workshop with all the clients in my coaching program and we talked about time and I think they got some really big shifts to help them decrease the amount of overwhelm and stress and anxiety they were feeling about their time and then like really consciously making some choices about how they were going to use it. And I'm like, we don't have time for that whole workshop, but I thought I would give you a few of the most important points to help, like shift the way you're thinking about your time and I thought these would really help you as well, okay? So, the first thing that I want to say is that while we talk about managing our time, there's actually no such thing, at least not for humans, right?

Like we can't actually manage time, we have nothing to do with it, right? Time is actually 100% out of our control. Like, we can't stop it. We can't start it. We can't change it. We can't delay it. We can't interrupt it, we can't redirect it, right? Like this time just is, and you actually have no control over that. And the only thing we really have control over. n this life is our own minds, our own experiences, our own feelings and actions and results, right? And so, just like anything else, when we are talking about managing our time, we are really talking about managing our mind and deciding on purpose what we're going to think about our time. And then that is going to create our feelings and drive all our actions with time. And in many ways, I think that thoughts are that knowledge that I'm just managing me within time can be so useful and so empowering and so helpful, right? Like you are not God. You don't control time. You are not in charge of it and like you don't have to be. You just have to control you. You just have to decide how you're going to think about how you spend your time. And that makes it so much more manageable in and of itself, right? There's no such thing as time management. There is just brain management, and that's what we're always doing here is just one more area of our life in which to do it, okay.

So, to start, I want you to think about what is time, right? What is time? And listen, like, I'm not a physicist. I don't. I don't I don't really understand it, right? Time is just a concept. It is a construct is a way. We describe the indefinite continued progress of existence. That is the definition of time. The indefinite meaning. We don't know when it starts. We don't know when it ends. It is indefinite and it is the indefinite, continued progress of existence. And this is kind of like mind blowing to think about, iight? But it is just the indefinite, inevitable, infinite continued progress of existence. And a lot of times we think about time as like as a container, right? Like a day or a week or a month.

And we think about it like this container, this box, and we think about it like in terms of like, do I have enough of it? Do I have a lot of it? Do I have a little of it? As if we could contain it? And really and truly there is no containing it is just the continued progress of existence. And I love I love to have those words in that definition first, indefinite, right? Like we don't know how much ahead of us there are. We don't know how much behind of us there was. Right. It is indefinite. And we always just have what we have.

There's no such thing as not enough because its existence is continuing. So, as long as you continue to exist, you continue to have time. And we think about time is just like. A container. Like a limited amount. That's how our brain perceives time, right? Our brain thinks in finite terms, and so it thinks of time as like a beginning and end in a finite unit. But time isn't like that, is it? It is infinite. And so when we understand that, we can relax a lot of our, like, desperate, grasping thoughts about time, about, like, running out or not having enough when we recognize, like, as long as I exist, there is more time.

And if you believe, like I do, that we continue to exist even after this life, then you know that even then time continues. I always have time. And as long as we exist, right, we have time. We have continued time to progress and grow. And I love thinking about time like this, like knowing that there is always more. My brain wants to tell me there's not enough, and then I'm going to run out, and then I'm late. And then I'm, you know, I don't have enough of it, but there is always more. Time, in fact, is infinite. And even though my brain doesn't work in the infinite, right? and it likes to put time in little containers, little calendar boxes.

Like the truth is that it is infinite and that as long as you exist, time does as well. And so, I want to give you a little shift to start to think about time differently and to offer you that time is like a river. It is a river that never stops flowing. You don't know where the source of it is. You don't know where the end of it is. And you're just in the middle of this river. And even after this life, that river will continue. And when you start to think about time like a river instead of a box or a container, right? Then you start to recognize, Wow, wait a minute, I have as much time as there is because I exist. And it also like lends itself to the thought that there is more where that came from. So, many times when we think about time is limited, we get scared, we get desperate, right? But the truth is, there's more where that came from. And this allows you to relax and to, like just open up and recognize, like, time is going to continue. And all that I have is the choice right in front of me. I love thinking about time like a river. Because then I know that I always have enough. I always have the perfect amount.

There's always more where that came from. And in any given moment, I can change how I'm spending my time. Like when we think about it like this, this also shows you that you cannot waste time. Time is always being used as a river. It's always flowing. And so we talk a lot about, like, wasting time and not using it effectively. But listen, your time is always being used. As long as your existing time is being used and you can't waste it. Every moment is being used and you can simply just decide like, Is this how I want to continue to use my time? Or do I want to change how I'm using it?

Also, when you think about it like this means that you can't save time, right? Like we we only have the moment in front of us. We can't save it. Like the river is flowing and you just have the moment in front of you. How are you going to use it? And it also helps you see that, like, regret is so useless. So, many times we regret the way we use our time. Or we tell ourselves that we should have used it differently, that it should have been done differently, that we shouldn't have made that choice and wasted our time in doing this or that or or whatever thing. And really, when you think about time as a river, you recognize like, I can't go back upstream, there's no point in regret because I don't get to go back cause I'm just in the moment that I'm in right now. And any time that I spend thinking about like going back upstream, just all that does is make me miss the moment I'm in right now. I think it's really interesting how much time we spend every single day in the past or in the future thinking about what we have done, thinking about how it should have been in the past, and thinking about like, you know, our worries about how it's going to be in the future. And we're missing the present moment. We're missing the point in the river where we are right now. And so, when you think about time like a river, you see that there is only right now, there's only what I have right now.

How am I going to use right now? And that really helps you like drop your regret, stop spending time trying to get upstream and just take advantage of the now that you are in, when you think about time as this infinite river like it's always been flowing, it will continue to always flow. You can give up so many of the thoughts that create shame and regret and fear and worry, right? We have shame and regret about the past. We have worry and fear about the future. And you can just bring your mind to right now, how do I want to spend my time right now and really deciding to be proud of those decisions? There is no wrong way to use your time, but you want to bring some attention to it so you can decide if intentionally, like if this is how you want to use that indefinite continued progress of your existence.

Because remember that the way we spend our time is going to create the results of our life, what we do in any given moment. Those actions, those decisions, they add up and they create the results in our life. And in order to create anything in our lives, remember, you only need two things. You need to be alive. You need time in your body, and you need the ability to choose. Okay? And you have both. And so, many times we tell ourselves, like, I can't choose something different because I have been choosing this other thing and it's just nonsense. Like you have the now, which is right now the time in your body and you have agency, the ability to choose, which means that in this moment, right now, you get to change the results of your life. You have the power to change the results of your life depending on how you spend your time right now. And it this is just such a powerful metaphor to think about the time of your life like a river, because like the truth about rivers is they are always changing. There is never a fixed like river.

There is never a fixed quantity, there's never a defined river that that isn't changing that like this is the river and it's never change. It's like every second, every millisecond it is changing and you have the same capacity in your life. You aren't fixed and every moment presents a new choice and every choice that you make is creating the results of your life. So, that is the first shift that I want you to have. That time is indefinite, it is infinite. You have all there is, and with it you can create any choice in any given moment, and that will change the results of your life. The second thing that I really want to give you a shift in with your time is that.

You are always using it the way you want to. Now, I know that it doesn't feel like that, I understand. I know that it feels like. No, that's not true. April, I have all these things that I spend my time on that I have to do, right. And if I had my way, I wouldn't be spending my time doing this. But it is so important that you understand how much agency you have and how much you are actually using right now sometimes feels like like your time is acting upon you and like, you just have to do all these things. And then, like, you're scrambling for the scraps you're scrambling to use, like what's left over. And I want to show you that you were using all of your time in the way that you want to. So, let me explain this, and hopefully it will give you some shifts about really deciding what it is you want.

Okay, so, I think one of the ways to to really think about this is to compare time to money for just a minute. So, quite a few years ago now, my coach told me the amount of money you have in your bank account is a result of your thoughts. It's a result of what you've been thinking. And I was like, okay like there is no way that that is true, right? And she's like, the results in your bank, you get like that is just revealing what you have been thinking. And I was just like. This cannot be true. I just like the results in my bank account are like a result of like what my husband brings in. And then like all the bills I have to pay, like, has nothing to do with my thoughts. At least that's what I thought at the time, right?

And she showed ,e that like, no, in fact. Okay, what are the actions that I take with my money? What are the actions you take with money? What what do I spend? What do I save? What do I earn? Right? What do I use? What do I donate? What are the things that I do with my money? Right? All of those things that I do with my money, those actions are coming downstream of my thought. I have all kinds of thoughts about what we need, about what's important, that we need a roof over our head, that we need electricity, that I need to pay my taxes. I like I have all these thoughts that I need to take care of. Then I have other things that I want, right? And that I think are important. Like I thought for a long time, music lessons were important. It's important to spend my money on that and like give my children those kinds of experiences. And it turns out that in fact, every action that I did with my money was coming from a thought I had about what we needed or what was a priority, or what was important or what was not important, right? And that was like those things added up or subtracted from the amount that that we brought in and that created the result in my bank account.

And when I figured this out, I was like, oh my gosh, listen, if I change any one of those thoughts that I have about money, any one of those thoughts about what I have to spend on or what I want to spend on or or what's important to me, if I change any one of those thoughts, it's going to change the result in my bank account. If I change my thoughts about what I'm capable of earning, what what amounts I'm able to bring in, what amounts that we can earn in projects together, right? Like, like those thoughts are going to change the amount my bank account and suddenly I could recognize that like, oh my gosh, this thing, this money that I thought I had no control over, that I thought was just happening to me, in fact, is just the result of my thoughts.

And this like you guys, I know this maybe sounds obvious to some of you. But like this changed my whole perspective of money. I recognize, like if I want to change, you know, the bottom line in my bank account, if I want to change how much money I have, I have to change my thoughts about it. Now, I want to offer you that the same is true of your time. When we look at the results of our life, it's just an accumulation of the actions we've taken. If I'm in shape, it's an accumulation of how much time I've spent working out or or eating right or the time that I've spent meal planning or something like that, right? The results in my faith, the results in my relationships, the results in my money like the results in my business.

All of those are created by the actions I have taken by the amount of time I've spent in each of those, by the priorities and the importance and how much time of my life I've spent, like engaged in doing the work of those. And like all of that, I recognize that like the results of your life are just an accumulation of the actions you've taken and the actions you've taken have come from the thought you've thought, like what you have thought was important. And these include all the thoughts we have about the things we have to do, the things we need to do, the things we want to do, the things we should do, the things that other people expect us to do right? We all have thoughts about what is important and those priorities.

Have created those thoughts about what's important in the way that we use our time, have created the results in our life. And when you know that, when you can really see like the results I have created are just because of what I have believed is important, the things that I think I have to do, the things that I should do, the things that other people expect me to do. Those thoughts, those things that I have believed have created like they have determined how I have divvied up my time and spent my time, and that's created the results in my life.

And so, if you don't like the results you're getting, what I want to invite you to do is like examine what have I been believing? What have I been telling myself I have to do because have to is always a lie. We have agency like should do is always a lie. Right? Because like all those things are just made up. They're just thoughts that somebody else has or somebody else gave us. But all of that is made up. And the truth is, we are only ever doing what we want to do. Now, what I want you to examine is like, why do I want to. Am I doing this thing because I really want to or because I don't want to disappoint other people. So, I want to go back to money so I can like illustrate this a little bit better. So, when I was working with my coach on my money, she was like, Make a list of everything you have to use your money on and then put a list of everything you want to spend your money on.

And of course, the list of like I have to spend my money on was huge, right? I have to pay my taxes. I have to pay my bills. I have to pay for the electricity. I have to put gas in the car. I have to, you know, buy new tires, like all of the things that like, I have to, but I didn't want to spend my money on. And and like the list of things that I want to spend my money on was so small, right?

Because the list of do's was so long. And then I was out of money. And what she invited me to say, see, was that like, no. In fact, there aren't any things that I have to spend my money on, but that in fact, I want to I want to be able to flip the lights on. I want to be able to have air conditioning. I want to stay out of jail so I pay my taxes. I want to be able to drive my car. So I put gas and gasoline in it. Right. And so, like, as we went down the list, I recognized that I was just telling myself that I had to pay them and I wasn't acknowledging that. In fact, I want all those things that it provides and knowing that shifted things so much for me.

Right then I could look at the things that I have to spend money on and ask myself, Do I want to? Do I want to have electricity? Do I want to pay taxes? And then all the things that I thought I had to suddenly become want to use. Now it's the same with your time and you can like list everything that you have to do and then the things that you want to do. You'll probably have the same experience I did where like the list of have does is huge. But when you really think about it, why like pick one of those things that I have to that is listed under the like I have to do this and ask yourself if it's true that I only do things I want to do, why am I doing this? Maybe I want to go to school so that I can, you know, have an education and provide for my future. Maybe I want to go to work so that I can have that paycheck or my insurance. Or contribute to my 41k, right?

Maybe I want to take care of my children because that's the kind of parent that I want to be. Maybe I want to drive my children to Little League because I want them to have that experience. And and then anything that you actually don't want to do, you could take off the list the things that you notice I'm only doing because of, like, somebody else's opinion, because of some somebody else's thought that I should be doing it. And you can really examine your reasons for wanting to if your reason for wanting to do it is only to please somebody else and only to like keep up appearances.

If I'm only doing this because I, you know, I think that other people expect me to that's something that you want to question and consider taking off, you know, the list of things that you spend your time doing when you hear yourself saying, I have to do this right, I have to spend my time on these things. Ask yourself, if I only do the things I want to do, why do I want to do this? And do I like that reason? Because you don't have to do anything. And and what I want you to do is examine the real reason you're doing it. And if it is not a reason that you like, you could let it go and you could decide to spend your time doing something else. If I'm only doing it because of somebody else's expectations, this is not a great reason. If I'm only doing it to prove that I'm valuable or good or worthy or like like prove something about myself. Like this is not a good reason either. I am valuable no matter what I choose to do. Nothing I do makes me good, makes me better. And so I don't have to do any of these things.

Am I trying to prove that I'm okay by doing them? I hope that these two ideas one that time is an indefinite river. And you always have enough. You always have what's right in front of you in the now. And the idea that you are always doing what you want to do, that you never have to do anything, will empower you to examine how you're using your time, examine your choices, and change the way you're spending your time if you want to do it differently. That is your right as a human. You have time, and the way you choose to spend it is creating all the results of your life. And if you want to change it, you get to. And that, my friends, is 100% awesome. I love you for listening. And I'll see you next week.

You know that voice in your head when that tells you that you've messed up. That nobody likes you, that you look terrible. That you're failing, that no matter what you do, it's never good enough. That inner critic is there because you have a brain. But you don't have to put up with this constant barrage of criticism. Things can be different. On September 9th, at 11 a.m., I am hosting a Free Inner Critic Workshop to give you all the tools you need to quiet that voice in your head and really love yourself. Register today at Aprilpricecoaching.com.