The Cosmopolitan Blog

Time… strange lil’ bugger that one! Have you recently asked yourself:

• OMG, it’s 2010, where did 2009 go?
• has it really been 10 years since the millennium?
• It’s already February and I haven’t even begun to put my new years resolutions in place

If any of this sounds familiar, then I’m pretty sure:

1. You’re older than 25: the only reason we wonder where time flies is because one day resembles the next, and if that’s the case, then we’re no longer in school/college where our landscape changes regularly: new classes/topics every semester, different parties every night, new students to meet…
2. You have a regular routine: whether you enjoy it or are stuck in a rut, chances are, everyday, you go through your morning routine, then you go to work, then you go run errands, have dinner, go through your evening routine and go to bed. Weekends probably have their own routine too.

Observation No1:

When it’s gone by, time seems like it went by so fast, but when we look ahead at what’s coming up, it seems like we have plenty of time. That’s why we love New Years resolutions, because we’re looking forward and thinking we have the entire year to work on them, that’s 12 months!! But now, if we look back and realize that we’ve already gone through an entire month of that new year, then we can’t believe how fast it went.

I mean think about it, right? Today’s Monday. Doesn’t it just feel like it was Friday just 5 seconds ago? Sure you might have had a great weekend, but why did it go by so fast? But now, it being Monday, you think “ah, ok, beginning of the week, plenty of time to do everything I need to do this week”. Even still, I can guarantee that suddenly, you’re gonna go from feeling like you have all week to accomplish a whole lot of “stuff”, to waking up Friday going “huh? where’d the week go?”.

Observation No2:

Have you ever felt like, when you’re watching a movie, there’s a moment somewhere in the middle where you suddenly disconnect for 5 minutes? Well, I’ve just had my first 5-second moment of inattention in life. And by 5 seconds, I mean 5 years. Actually, it’s my 2nd.

My first was after college, I did what you’re supposed to do. Get a job. And i worked for 3 years in the hotel industry, a job that’s so time-consuming (12 hour shifts, to start with) that you don’t have time for anything else. So i woke up around 25 going “wait, what?, how am I already 1/2 way through my 20s?”. So I woke up, quit my job, changed countries and studied for my masters’ degree.

And now’s my 2nd moment. After my masters, what’d I do? I got another job. And I love my job. But now it’s 5 years later and I freaking out again. I feel like I passed out for 5 years, during which time i even managed to turn 30 (and more), and now i’m back to that “wait, what?”

This does not apply to everyone, I’m sure. But like I said before, this is my blog, so there!

Conclusion:

I spent 2 weeks during the holidays in Spain. It was great except it rained the whole time. And that was awesome cuz I had a lot of moments of quiet time, and I used it to reflect. I happened to be reading the most fantastic book to help me focus. And I create a life plan and a vision for myself. And I’ve set up sanity checks along the road to make sure I don’t pass out again:

1. Every month, I will leave this city. Even if it’s just 24 hours. Even if it’s just the next town over. JUST to break the monotony.
2. I divided my goals in: life, career and love. They’re all related (cuz i’m someone who has to love what i do and work on every day), and every week, I set myself ONE GOAL (and not a massive one, a small, measurable, achievable one, a next step in a bigger goal) and make sure I action it. The point is, I WANT TO SUCCEED, so i won’t sabotage it by making it too difficult. And I try to rotate on goal per “life aspect” every week
3. I’ve started meditating. Not 1/2 an hour, cuz I can’t seem to find it, but 10 minutes (and if I try, it stresses me out thus defeating the whole purpose). Just enough to have done something FOR MYSELF that day, to have 10 minutes of focus on what I want this upcoming day to be. See, by acknowledging every single day, I am differentiating it from the one before and the one after, and I feel they don’t go quite so fast.
4. I “check in” with my vision board and life plan every week to make sure things are progressing (to use a project management term, i create my “burndown chart”)
5. I ensure I see the big picture. Always. I dream awake a lot, I imagine, I create in my mind. I smile a lot. I let the petty stuff go. And I keep my EGO in check, cuz, believe it or not, it’s the greatest hinderer to life progress. Seth Godin calls it resistance. Deepak Chopra calls it EGO, either way, it’s got an ugly head.

And I know it’s working, cuz I’m looking back at January with a solid sense of satisfaction. Because, as they say… time is of the essence.

Similar Posts:

• What Deepak Chopra did for me