What is your time worth?
We review products on Amazon or social media. We talk about companies and we reflect upon our experiences. It’s not only that we state how we felt about it, but in unspoken terminology, we describe whether our time was well invested or wasted.
Time. It is the only true currency in existence. It is also a personal resource. The only resource you cannot renew. Oftentimes we spend this personal currency on items that are not worth our time. Other times, our time spent with something or someone is validated and we enjoy the dividends.
How are we spending our time professionally?
Most of us are rushing to get our work done. We live in a society that values output more than the input. We are addicted to measuring our professionalism on a quantitative scale. Your last performance review had at least one or more measurable component in it. At times, we completely disregard the human element of performance, and only aim for KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). If that describes your professional life, you’re also likely to be concerned to take a few well deserved days off or go on vacation altogether.
American employers, at least those who get it, are slowly coming around, recognizing that we are no longer talking about exploitable Human Resources, but investments in Human Capital. People operations supersede business operations. Real interactions are of higher value than yet another measurable data point.
Some companies award ‘unlimited vacation’ time, knowing that a self-governing employee will perform at higher standards than an employee who has to fulfill managed mandates.
In that shift alone, our time becomes more valued and by extension, more valuable. We produce because we want to produce. We are emotionally content with the framework of giving our time in exchange for feeling valued.
How are we investing in ourselves outside of work, though?
The elephant in the room is simple to identify: Focus. We are TV show addicts. We can count millions of tweets when the latest installment of “Game of Thrones” is broadcast. Yet, we can count on one hand how many people asked or reported what they ate while they were firmly grasped by a well edited and addictive TV show.
Why is the food discussion important? Because it is oftentimes a ‘silent’ investment in yourself. You’re spending your time watching TV, while you spend double time eating. You’re not focused on what you’re consuming. The focus is inhaled by the action on the screen. Thus, you succumb to eating mindlessly.
The time that you invested to have an educated opinion when your friends and family talk about last night’s show, which is a social-time investment, is immediately equalized by a negative investment that subtracts from your personal time.
This doesn’t get to say that we should all throw out our TV sets and cancel our cable subscriptions, although there are some amazing benefits tied to that, but it gets to underline that we cannot adequately focus on two things at the same time, especially when they are at odds with one another.
The idea of ‘feel good’ and ‘immersive’ TV, lends itself to the appropriate ‘comfort’ food.
How do you eat an elephant?
You focus on one bite at a time. Unless you’re vegan.
Focus is the steady companion of time. If you focus on your asset (time) and how you invest it, you will be making better decisions. Inevitably. You’ll quickly discern whether something is worth your time. Layer that with the skill to “Say No” and you’ll find your personal path to asset prioritization.
How much time would you like to spend on planet earth?
Considering that you’re healthy, chipper and have a positive outlook on life, the answer is likely “as long as humanly possible!”
In a purely philosophical sense, the caveat is that we don’t know how much time we’ll have. “Memento mori” – we are all mortals and mortality can meet with us at any moment in time.
Wouldn’t it behoove us to wisely invest our time, for that we focus to keep mortality at bay, barring unforeseen circumstances?
The circumstances that are under your control can dramatically be influenced in the manner in which you focus on how you spend your time.
How are you spending your time when it comes to personal health?
Frequently, we sabotage ourselves by investing time into actions that show now discernible positive outcome. Sometimes, we even double down on that.
Not only do we spend erroneously, we also do so by subtracting from our overall life expectancy.
In that event, we are burning the candle at both ends.
We sleep too little.
We chronically under-eat, because that’s what we’ve been taught.
We work too much and stress too easily.
We ignore the science that states that prolonged stress is contributory to six leading causes of death (Miami Herald, 2014)
We eat as if we’re invincible, stuffing processed carbohydrates into ourselves as if the next famine was just around the corner.
We disregard our vital signs because we interpret living as being fully ‘alive’.
We look at our physique and the worse we get, the more we hide behind the ‘body shaming’ movement.
All the above is tabulating on a ledger of life. One that runs against your allotted time. It subtracts. Takes way. It erodes what otherwise could be a longer, healthier, stronger and more engaging live. Above all, the ledger calculates just how much sooner you will have to rely on someone’s assistance upon entering the inevitable stages of your own fragility.
What are you going to do about it? Who should you turn to for advice, guidance, and support?
The time-investment-banker. Your serious, professional, dedicated, passionate, generous and intelligent nutrition and fitness professional. These “bankers” come in many flavors and in many locations, offering many different spins of what’s right and what’s wrong.
There is, however, one strict path to achieving longevity:
Low carbohydrates in your nutrition. Reduce alcohol to near zero. Soda should become a foreign word to you. Balance your protein and good fat sources to accommodate your daily lifestyle.
Support your nutrition decisions with functional fitness, none of that bodybuilding nonsense or dying on a treadmill, but good old fashioned cross functional movements, and you’ll have a winning combination on your hands.
Especially as it relates to ‘time’. Functional fitness is faster. You can achieve vastly better results within 30 minutes of functional fitness, than you will ever be able to achieve in 2-hours at a bodybuilding gym. The key ingredient is that you’re not wanting to look like Arnold, but more like Gerard Butler in the movie “300”. The newsflash to Butler’s incredible physique? Amazingly well adjusted nutrition AND professionally guided functional fitness.
If you act, then time is on your side!
If you want to know how that’s all done, email us, and we’d love to assist you!