Time is a funny thing.  How regularly do you refer to there not being enough time, running out of time, behind time, or conversely having too much time?

How often have you heard either yourself or someone else say “I don’t have the time to exercise or eat well” or maybe something along the lines of, “Relax?…I don’t even have time to sit still!”

Minutes and hours are a currency and we get to decide how we spend those precious dollars, or we can let it spend us.  Alternatively we can have it serve us by choosing how and where we invest this for the greatest return.  With this in mind, how much time are you choosing to invest in your health and is the return satisfactory?

We don’t need a Doctor or Dietician to tell us what we already know, a balanced diet and regular physical activity is important. Given that we all have access to the same amount of hours in a day, why is it that some people seem to have time and others don’t?

It comes down to prioritising health. Make time to focus on your health by considering the below:

1. Time to be honest with yourself:

Stop. Take a moment and consider the state of your health as it is right now.
Now ask yourself how important is it to you to have a sense of vitality in your everyday life, and to the people you share this with. What are the things you are not currently able to participate in that would bring greater value to your life owing to poor energy, restricted mobility or lack of ‘get up and go’?  Ask yourself honestly what it is that is currently working well and what isn’t? What needs to change and what can you change now?

2. Time to Set Goals & Plan Tasks:

The people in our lives freely ask of our time, so why not start returning the favor to ourselves?

Change starts by trying something different, only then can we expect different results.  It doesn’t mean everything has to change overnight, but we can start by identifying what the next small steps are that we can action immediately in order for us to improve the state of our health.

Now that you’ve acknowledged what might need to change, most crucial is taking action, the sooner the better.  Commit to writing down or speaking to your Wife/Husband, friends, GP or other health practitioner about what you’d like to do.  The right support at the right time is critical when the going gets tough in the midst of change.

Make an honest assessment of where you are expending energy in your day, ask yourself where there is an opportunity for time spent being physically active, this might simply be introducing a brisk 20 minute walk, 2 – 3 times a week.

3. Time to Pause, Reflect & Refine.

Change can be confronting, it requires conscious, consistent effort hence our propensity to default back to comfortable and familiar habits.  Establishing a new way of being and doing takes courage so be gentle and know you get to decide the pace at which you make changes.

Reflect and ask yourself what needs to be refined, what can stay or go.  You are now flexing your growing muscle around making time for health, a muscle only you can train.

4. Time to See it through – Consistent Action

When we take the time to identify what’s important, we then make the time to follow through on what’s important. The rest is consistent action, a little each day.  Look at our current habits, we did something once, and for whatever reason we repeated this enough times for it to become an unconscious exercise.  

Before you know it you’ll be reflecting back on how far you’ve come, how good you feel and understand that it was never really about not having time, you just consciously decided that your health was a priority.  It’s about time don’t you think?