[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Suddar here aka the focus b. And on this show I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.

[00:41] I'm really excited to announce that in the upcoming weeks, I am launching my new program to help you to optimize your time and your energy to reach the results and impact you want in your business and in your life. If you want to find out more about my new program, check out thefocusbeat.com program. The truth is that there's no such thing as time management. You don't manage your time, you manage yourself and how you deal with time. This is one of the first really important mindset shifts that needs to happen for you to gain control and for you to be more in time. What do I mean by this? I mean for you to be more present in your life and not feel constantly rushed and as if you're liking time, there's a fantastic quote by Jackson Brown who says, don't they you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pastor, Michelangelo, Mother Theresa, Leonardo DA Vinci, Thomas Jefferson and Albert Einstein, and obviously pretty much everyone else in the world. The idea here is to look at your thoughts, look at what you're thinking about time, and start to see if you're looking at it from a more victim perspective or ownership perspective. If you have a victim mindset about time, then you're seeing constantly in your mind lack of time as a villain in your life. It's as if things aren't happening the way you'd like them to because of this big villain lack of time that's preventing you from spending time with the people in your life, taking up a new hobby, lying in in the morning, exercising, reading books. And every time the excuse would be, I don't have the time. And the truth is we have the same time, each of us, all of us, every day. Time in some ways is such a gift because it's a massive equalizer. We don't all have the same amount of money, but we all have the same amount of time. We're all equal in that respect. So what it comes down to is what are you willing to do to create space and time for what matters for you? And this is where you shift from the victim mindset of lack of time and out of control and there's nothing you can do about it to the ownership mindset of wait a minute, this is how I'm spending my days. I want to choose how I spend them. I want to choose to spend more time in these relationships, to take up a hobby, to go to bed earlier and have a long night's sleep, to read whatever it is that you feel is important for you, you have the ability to make this a priority. Around 100 years ago, miners in the United Kingdom, for instance, but pretty much everywhere else, would after a whole day of being in the mines all day, they would go to the library and study for two, 3 hours on a certain topic. I know that my great grandfather taught himself math in the evenings by candlelight because that's what he wanted to do with his life. They never blamed lack of time, even though they were in minds all day. They just chose that the free time that they had, they dedicated to what was important for them. And for many of them, that was education or learning a new field. Once we start to realize that we fall back on this excuse of lack of time too often or being busy, they are essentially similar excuses, then we can start to shift it. We can start to think, why do I feel this way? Why do I feel like I don't like time? And start to see what do you actually spend your time on? How much is invested in work? How much are you on your phone? How much are you spending with people in your life? How often are you multitasking and therefore not really present with what you're doing? And when you shift and look at how you spend your time and how you want to spend it, and you see the discrepancy that's when you can start to put an action plan in place and that's taking full ownership. It's realizing that the way you're spending your time now, every second of every day is linked either to a past decision or to a present decision. Either one time in the past you agreed to a job or you agreed to a project, or you agreed to go to this party or meet these people. So you made a decision and a commitment before that is now making you do these tasks, or it's a decision you're making right now. You're choosing to cook, for instance, or you're choosing to read or watch television. It's a decision you're making in the moment when you realize this, you'll start to notice that the decisions that you make that commit you to the future are things that you can change. So before agreeing to projects or seeing friends or whatever it is, thinking, what is the cost for this? What's the alternative cost? If I say yes to this project, which projects will I need to turn down? If I say yes to this activity, does it mean I will sleep less? So a great part of taking ownership of time is looking at alternative costs of how you're spending your time. Because this is something that we don't do often enough. Too often. We say easy, we say yes we want to be easy going, we want to please people. And so we don't realize that by saying yes to this party, it might mean less quality time with your family or less sleep. And it's looking at not only what you agree to in terms of time, but also in terms of mental space. Because as the second part of this season will be on energy, you'll see that that's a huge correlation with time also. So taking into account your mental space and just looking in general, what are the costs of your decisions and I mean all of these decisions, taking that job, what does it mean on a daily basis? This is a fundamental part. So shifting from the victim to the ownership mindset is absolutely huge. And the more you start to notice how you think and the more you start to shift it towards an ownership mindset and not feel a victim of this big villain lack of time or busy that's out there getting you, the more you'll realize you have a lot more power and control to spend time on what matters for you. You can create the time, you can carve out the time if it really means that much for you. And a small note here also is notice that it makes you feel significant when you say that you're busy. Just notice, don't judge, don't be mad at yourself, just notice that on that moment when you say, oh, I'm so busy, I'm so busy, I can't do that. There's a small part of you that feels proud because this is one of the reasons we do that. This is one of the reasons we say I'm busy or I can't. It makes us feel important. Oh, I'm so important, so busy. So many things going on. Notice. And then realize that's just a story you're telling yourself. You're just saying, oh, I'm so busy, I'm so important, I'm so great. And instead you have 24 hours. I have 24 hours a day. How do you spend those hours? That's it. There's no such thing as busy. Busy is a myth. You're doing activities, other people are doing activities. If being busy just means doing stuff, we're all busy. It doesn't mean anything. We're doing things. And often what we actually mean when we say that we're busy is that whatever is suggested isn't a priority for us or we don't want to do it. And then just say this is not a priority for me right now, or this doesn't feel right for me, it doesn't feel aligned. You don't need to use the word busy or excuse. Hugely, hugely important victim and ownership. And a last note here is around abundance versus scarcity. So when you keep repeating I don't have enough time, there isn't enough time in the day, I don't have enough hours. This is encouraging a scarcity mindset where you believe you don't have enough of a certain quantity and if you switch this over to abundance mindset where you think there's plenty of time to do everything you want in life, then you'll never feel this sort of scarcity and lack. So this is also hugely important. So the more you work on, and I mean you work on, which is essentially notice your thoughts, reframe your thoughts, think differently, use other vocabulary and catch yourself. Catch yourself when you say I'm busy or I don't have enough time, and reframe and reformulate. So the more you work on this, both on the ownership mindset, you are in control of your time. This is your life. No one's deciding how you spend your hours, you are deciding this and then the abundance. You have the time for what matters for you. I repeat, you have the time for what matters for you. So that's the abundance. These mindsets are fundamental pillars for you to embrace time and to not feel it as a constraint and to transform the way you view it and not feel restricted by it. Essentially, it opens you up to all the possibilities out there. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I hope that you will implement these mindset shifts in your life. And I would highly, highly recommend that you practice this because it is life changing and it has changed my life. Hopefully you've enjoyed it. Please send me a message, a comment to let me know what was your main insight, and leave a review for people to find out about this podcast. If you feel this has been useful for you, it means the world to me. So thank you. Thank you and wishing you a wonderful day.

[11:37] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback. So let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member. Wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.