You Don't Have A Time Problem - You Have A Priority Problem

You’ve said it before.
“I just don’t have enough time.”

And in this episode… I’m calling bullshit.

Because I’m a mom of a 13-month-old - and I still hear this excuse constantly from women who say they want more: more freedom, more income, more alignment, more fulfillment.

This episode might trigger you.
That’s intentional.

Inside this conversation, we’re unpacking the real reason “I don’t have time” keeps showing up - and it has nothing to do with your schedule and everything to do with priorities, fear, and self-trust.

If you’ve ever felt:

• Overwhelmed by your to-do list
• Stuck in cycles of busyness with nothing to show for it
• Frustrated that you “want more” but can’t seem to make progress
• Triggered by women who do make it work

…this episode is for you.

In this episode, we dive into:

• Why “I don’t have time” is one of the safest excuses we use to avoid growth
• What you’re actually doing with your time (and where it’s leaking)
• The uncomfortable difference between being busy vs. being intentional
• How motherhood forced me to get radically honest about priorities
• Why waiting for life to slow down is the fastest way to stay stuck
• 5 tangible, real-life ways to reclaim time - without more hustle

Listen in if you’re ready to stop hiding behind busyness and start building a life that actually reflects what you say you want.

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Kati Lilian. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that, because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you're new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you will never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Kati Lillian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting hashtag sweaty selfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and. Challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. So starting this, I am going to say something that might piss you off, and that's okay. That's my job as a coach. I'm not here to coddle you or comfort you. I am here to highlight the gaps. I am here to challenge your thought process and limiting beliefs that are probably working on autopilot and have been for years, and so you don't even realize how limiting they are. But one of the limiting beliefs that I keep hearing, and it pisses me off because I'm a new mom and I see it in a different light, but the belief is I don't have enough time. And telling yourself I don't have enough time is one of the biggest lies we tell ourselves. And I know that's triggering because a lot of us are like, but Kaia, you don't know my schedule and Kaia blah, blah, blah, blah. And I get it. I thought that way too, but now being a mom of a 13 month old and I have no nanny. I have no full days to myself. I barely have 30 minutes, maybe an hour on a good day to myself, and somehow I'm still making time for things that matter. I'm still showing up here on the podcast every fucking Friday. I have not missed a beat. And so today we're going to tell the truth about what you are actually doing with your time, whether you like it or not. And this episode, I get it. It's not for everyone. It's for the woman who says, you know, you want more, but you keep hiding behind this busyness. And when I reflect. And when I thought about this podcast episode, I was like, wow, I think I used to use busyness as a badge of honor, right? Like, oh, I'm so busy. And I don't know. There was just something so like glorified about having a packed schedule and. I, I am not trying to demonize a pack schedule because a lot of those actually can move the needle in your business, or, you know, other moms listening. Maybe you do have a pack schedule with, I don't know, play dates and shit, and so sometimes the pack schedule is not the problem, but it's what you're. Doing in that pack schedule. That is the problem. And again, especially if you're wanting to do more or if you're wanting to, you know, start that side hustle and make some extra income on the side, and you just don't feel like you're able to create the content or post the content or write the captions or send the dms, set up calls, have the conversation on top of. Your day to day, everything else you're doing with your job or upcoming travel or family events, or again, if you're a mom, especially of a, a toddler who's not in school yet. And if you're choosing not to hire a nanny or a babysitter often because you wanna raise your own child like I get it, but. I think we need to peel back some layers here because if you keep saying, I don't have time, and you keep feeling this, grow, this growing frustration within you of like, I'm just not making shit happen and I just, I want it still so bad. Well then we need to dig deeper and be like, what's actually going on? What is this busyness and this, I don't have time, belief, and this narrative actually protecting you from. Because sometimes we say it as an excuse and that feels easier and that feels safer, honestly, than saying something deeper like, I'm scared I actually will fail. I'm scared of what other people might think. I am scared to feel uncomfortable'cause I'm uncomfortable. I don't wanna do anything. I'm good. Or I don't trust myself to follow through. So time becomes almost the socially acceptable excuse, right? Because like think of all the times you use that Life is busy. Oh, I can't, ah, I need more hours in the day. Whatever you say, no one really argues with you, right? No one actually stops you and challenges that. They're just, oh yeah, I get it. Because they're usually busy too, and that's why it's convenient. It's so accepted and normalized in our society today. And then what happens is it allows you to avoid your next level. It allows you to avoid the dream on your heart. It allows you to avoid the desire that keeps showing up that you can't stop thinking about. And so I'm gonna be crystal clear here, and this is where it's gonna get a little spicy. This is what you're probably doing. I've worked with so many clients who say, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time. And I'm like, okay, cool. Think of the last day, just the last day, and maybe you listening to this right now, just think about it yesterday. What did you do with your time? And I'm not talking about work. I'm not talking about commuting, I'm not talking about any of that. But when you like actually had 10 minutes or 15 minutes, right?'Cause you make your coffee. I'm sure you eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, probably even a snack or two. Did you watch a show? Did you go on your phone, guarantee you went on your phone? So we do have pockets of time, but again, what are you doing in those pockets of time? I guarantee if you sit down, you're like, I'm just gonna scroll for 10 minutes. It easily can turn into 30, 45 minutes. Are you watching your shows? Everyone talks about Tell me Lies or His and hers or All Her fault, or whatever popular TV show is on right now. Guarantee you're making time to watch those. Or you're even rewatching some shows that you've already seen. I hear about the Office all the time, or Gilmore Girls. And I get it. Those are awesome shows. But it's just you being honest with what are you doing? There's no judgment in this right now. It's just you being radically accountable and honest with yourself. Like, oh yeah, this is what I did. Right. You're consuming. Instead of creating, you're waiting to feel ready. So you're kind of doing all the things and waiting for this energetic rush of readiness. You're overthinking, you're constantly planning. Writing down ideas in your journal and and bullet pointed list, and to do plans and even time blocking your calendar, but then you're moving those blocks of time in your calendar. You're waiting for all your ducks in a row while you create a perfect plan instead of just taking the messy. First step, you're saying yes to things that you don't even care about, you say yes to, I don't know, weddings that you don't even like the people you say yes to a trip and you don't even like the people that invited you and that you're going with. Like you have no boundaries. You're just saying yes, and that fills up your time. If you look at it this way, everyone starts with a blank slate. Think of your calendar. Think of your calendar as a blank slate. It is just all white space Monday through Sunday. You are the one that is actively choosing to put shit in that white space. Anytime you say yes to anything, even your job, sometimes we feel stuck and we're like, well, God, my job. Hey, you're choosing to be at that job. A part of you at one point said yes to that job, and now you might feel stuck. But guess what? There are other jobs. There are other jobs out there. I don't care who you are. I don't care. Your financial situation, I don't care anything. I don't care how long you've been at a job, you are still actively choosing this job because if you're not choosing it, guess what? You are changing it. We've all heard that phrase before. This is why it's tough love today. You are actively choosing to be at your job and you are actively choosing to work overtime. You are actively choosing to work on the weekends. You're actively choosing to go on that girls trip that you don't even like the girls. You are saying yes, you are responsible. For a packed calendar and therefore feeling like you don't have enough time. But if you started to look at your calendar and started to say no to shit and remove that on your calendar, and now you have more white space, right? It's not that you don't have time, it's that your time is just leaking everywhere. It's leaking you guys. So like if I think about my experience and my story. Being a mom didn't give me more time. We know that. But you know what it did do, it actually helped because it shined the light on the gaps. One in my business, but two in what I was doing in the business. Like I if content took me all day Monday, which yes, sometimes it did. There's no way there. There's no reason that it needed to take all Monday, and I didn't know that until I became a mom and I was forced to think more strategically and getting ruthless about the pockets of time that I did have. Like now, I just filmed five, six, I just filmed seven. Videos, seven clips for content, seven in the span of 25 minutes, and that's not even that fast. I could actually probably pump out more like double, but that's how quick it can go. So 25 minutes compared to a whole day on a Monday. I didn't gain more time. I'm just choosing to be smarter and more strategic in the windows and pockets of time that I do have, right? And so motherhood in my personal experience, I'm not trying to push motherhood on everyone that's. Definitely not what I'm saying here, but what I'm saying in my personal experience, it highlighted all of these gaps and these limiting beliefs of busyness that I had, right? Motherhood didn't steal my time. It actually just clarified and highlighted what I needed to do and change to make shit happen and the happening, you get over it. You, you decide at a, at a point, it's like, okay, either I quit and I just throw my hands up and I'm not gonna do this anymore. Or let's get strategic, let's figure this shit out. I refuse to lose is my mantra for 2026. Right. And so then you just, your brain activates it, goes into solution mode. So again, everyone has different circumstances, everyone has different stories, and I get it, but we also don't wanna fall victim to those circumstances. Tony Robbins, if you guys watch the Alex, her Moey podcast interview with them too was so, so powerful. But he was like, we are not meant to be on this earth to just manage our circumstances. What we're here to do is create, we are creative beings and so the more you just have shit to handle and circumstances to deal with, you're not actually living, you're most aligned highest self. And life. What you're living is just this day to day, Monday, nine to five. Oh, I have this to do and I have this to do. And responsibility here and responsibility there and right. Like, I get it. I have responsibilities, I have bills to pay. I'm a wife, I'm a mother, I'm a daughter, I'm a sister. Like I've got shit. I've got a house, I've, I've got a mortgage, you know? I've got a a house. I've I said, I said a house. I've got a car. I've got two dogs. Like I have responsibilities. I'm 34, but I. I am also in alignment in my career path, and I am working from a place of being pulled, not pushed to very, very different things, right? And so sometimes if we go back to time, that's not the issue. It's the decision fatigue that you have from making all these decisions, from managing your circumstances all day. And then it's the low energy that you have. From making all those decisions, from doing misaligned things, remember, it's not giving you energy. It's actually depleting your energy sources and you say yes to everything. So you have zero boundaries, zero boundaries. And if you think about something that actually matters to you in your life, it's never a, a question about time. Like you rearrange shit in your life and on your calendar and you'll cancel calls and you'll reschedule and things to actually focus and have then time for whatever actually matters to you for whatever came up. You know this. I wanna ask you a few questions here and then I'll leave you with some tangible steps and action steps that you can apply here.'cause we love a good inspirational podcast. But I also want you to actually do something after this episode. So. The first question is, if you had 30 minutes a day, I'm not talking hours, I'm talking just 30 minutes a day. What would you do with it? First thing that comes to mind, don't even think too much about it, just first thing that pops up. What would you do if you had 30 minutes a day uninterrupted? The first thing that came up to mind for me was Pilates. I love a good 25, 30 minute free YouTube Pilates class. Alicia Pope is who I take the classes with, or she's purely Pope on YouTube. I'll link it below. She's fantastic. All free on YouTube, but 30 minutes a day, that's what I would do. Second thing that popped up, a walk, a 30 minute outdoor walk with my daughter in a stroller. Third thing I would do, this didn't pop up first because I already did it, but 30 minutes I would probably film content. Those are three things already that popped up into my brain showing me That is my number one priority. So whatever comes up for you, write it down. Think about it. Let that be right. Second question, why aren't you making the 30 minutes a day for that thing that popped up in your head? Why aren't you? Third, deeper question, what are you protecting yourself? From by saying you don't have time. Think about that. What are you protecting yourself from by saying you don't have time. Again, whatever comes up for you, let that be right. That's your answer. So I wanted to give you here, um, five tangible tips so that you can take this away and actually apply it in your life. For the next three days, number one, I want you to do a 72 hour time audit. So again, we're not judging ourselves and we're not trying to feel bad about ourselves. That's never what we do in coaching. All we're doing is we are analyzing almost like a doctor or a data analyst, just from like a bird's eye view shining down on this life of Katya, of Sarah, of Tina. I'm making all these names up of Britney, right? You're, you're almost like out of body looking above. Your person in this 3D world, and you're just looking at what she's doing for 72 hours, and I want you to write down actually what you're doing with your time, how you spend it. So I want you to write down, every time you scroll, anytime you watch tv, anytime you just sit there and overthink or you're spiraling. Anytime you're sitting there doing busy work and you know, deep down it's not moving the needle'cause it's the 5400th YouTube video you're watching about how to build and grow a business. I dunno where 5,400 came up, but there it is. So if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen. So you need to have this, whether it's a journal and you're writing it down or it's in your calendar. We're not time blocking here'cause that's beforehand. We're doing it after the fact. Okay? So I want you to audit your days for three days, and I just want you to be aware, what are we doing? Number two, what I want you to do is pick one 30 minute window in your day that is sacred. So it's not productive and we're not giving our energy or saying yes to someone else. This is your time and it's very, very intentional. So some pockets of time, 30 minutes maybe before your kids wake up. I know sometimes kids wake up with you, mine included. So sometimes that's not. Something that we can rely on during nap time. That's been huge for me.'Cause I just lay there with her on my phone and I don't scroll, but I write captions or whatever, respond to client messages or after bedtime. That's been huge for me. Post 8:00 PM that's when your girl works now? Not every day. I do it Monday through Thursday. I give myself the weekends, but whatever. So those are some examples, but find 30 minute windows. Right. One a day, and I want you to. Do something in those 30 minutes that is a non-negotiable. So like your number one priority. So again, whatever that thing came up for you in your mind when I asked you, what would you do if you had 30 minutes, that should probably be that thing in the 30 minute window. Like I said, Pilates or I said walk, and then I said content, right? You're picking one of those. Whatever came up for you. And I want you to just notice what you could actually do in 30 minutes. That's the beauty of this exercise, right? We're not putting away like two, three hours. We're noticing, whoa, I got a lot of shit done in 30 minutes. That's the whole point of this activity. Then what I want you to do, number three, is I want you to delete. And eliminate one of the time sucking things for seven days. I'm not saying forever, but I want you to test it. I want you to challenge yourself and delete it. Remove it from your life for seven days, and just notice one, how much time you get back. Two, probably how much better you'll feel, right? So number one example, scrolling on social media. Can we remove that for seven days, Netflix and tv? Can we remove that podcasts that you don't need? That you don't care for. Maybe it's not even helpful information. It's just like gossip, right? A lot of celebrities now are on podcasts and they're not all bad. Some are full of wisdom, but some are just gossip and, oh, you slept with so and so, or he cheated. What? Like, maybe those podcasts aren't the best for you right now. Saying yes to something out of obligation. I want you to pause before you say yes, and actually just remember, you know what, I'm running a seven day challenge and I can't say yes, so I have to say no. Blame it on me. Blame it on this podcast episode. Right, because every time you say yes, it drains you, right? It's stealing your time. I only say yes to things now that I genuinely love to do, like it truly is aligned with my highest excitement. Two, it makes me money in my business. Three, it's with my daughter or my husband. Like it's, it's very limited Now, in terms of what I say yes to. Okay. Number four, I want you to decide the night before, the one thing you'll work on tomorrow when you'll actually do it, and for how long. Okay, so this is besides the 30 minute non-negotiable window that we've already carved time for. Now, I want you to add an additional one thing that you'll work on tomorrow, so this is now blocking that time in your calendar moving forward when you'll do it. So right here. It's 10:00 AM or I guess I start at 9:30 AM but I said I'm gonna record my podcast episode because it comes out tomorrow. I'm gonna do it at 9:30 AM and I was gonna do it for 30 minutes. I'm seven minutes over, but that's why I'm here. That's why I'm sitting here because I already said 9:30 AM This is what I'm doing. And that's also very strategic because my mom and my dad are here. They're able to watch my daughter and it's right before her bedtime, so she shouldn't be cranky. So it's very strategic, and therefore I'm sitting here and I'm recording this for you all. Fifth and final thing is I want you to attach your goal to an existing routine. James Clear always talks about habit stacking, so you already eat. Breakfast every day, lunch every day, and dinner every day, or at least I hope you do. If you're a coffee drinker, you're probably making coffee every day, right? So whatever you already do, that feels very effortless. It's autopilot. It's not something that you consciously have to think about. I want you to stack on this new thing that you created in four with that habit. So, for example, if you wanna start journaling, I want you to journal while you are eating breakfast. Or you could do it right before breakfast or right after breakfast, but somewhere in that vicinity of the breakfast habit. If you already go on walks and you wanna think of caption ideas, then why not voice no ideas into your phone while you are already on the walk that you do every day? What if you're a mom and there's a nap time? That your kid has, instead of scrolling, write captions or edit videos that you perhaps have already shot, or when your dinner is cooking and you've got music on and it's a whole vibe, maybe then you, you outline content or you send some dms to new followers or people that have engaged with your content, like make it meaningful. With the thing that you already do every single day. Habit stacking is so, so powerful. So that's what I have for you today. If anything about this episode resonated with you, please do me a favor and take a screenshot of this podcast, post it on your stories, and tag me at Katya Lillian. I would love to connect with you. So thank you in advance and I appreciate you. Until next time.