Being busy, staying active in business, life or lifestyle is something that everyone needs.
We need to be needed, I suppose is what it comes down to.
We’re really as busy as we want to be aren’t we? The funny thing is, I’d say most people don’t see it this way. We don’t have to go to an appointment, we don’t have to book our schedule full. We choose to. Yes of course we have jobs and kids and or family that requires our attention, jobs that bring in money or pay the rent/put food on the table. But I stand firmly on the words, we don’t have to be busy all the time, not if we don’t choose to. Do you really think the bills won’t get paid, do you really think business won’t progress, do you really think a family member will disown us if we don’t cram that extra little appointment in?
When it comes to work we think we need to say we’re busy even when we’re not. I hear all the time, “I’m so busy”, “It’s been a busy week”. Course those words come out of my mouth all the time. And at times it feels like I don’t get a spare minute, but no one makes that decision but me.
Saying we’re busy makes us feel more important, it makes us feel needed, gives us a purpose. It’s very apparent when those who aren’t actually that busy say they are, but I understand where they’re coming from.
As much as we think we want to be busy, it’s not true, it’s not the whole truth or the reason behind…why we actually want to be busy. Some of us don’t want to face some realities, some don’t want that time to sit and reflect or see where their life is or where their life is going. We hide behind work, behind families, events and whatever else we can think of. Because once again we need to be needed, and we need to seem like we’re more busy than we are.
For whatever reason the word ‘busy’ makes us feel more important. I’m speaking from personal experience. There’s no one person or business I’m talking about in particular, I’m talking about myself, high end business people, celebrities, ect.
And even if we don’t know we make ourselves busy, and that we have the choice as to whether we are or aren’t, we don’t want to be busy. That’s not really what we’re after. What we’re after is freedom. We work more to make more money because we think money will bring us that freedom, which in most cases an honest person that knows better will tell you, money doesn’t bring freedom, in fact in most cases it brings quite the opposite. We work harder or more hours to give our children what we didn’t have, when in most cases all they want is our time.
More money usually brings more toys, more bills, more clutter and LESS time to do what we really want to do.
When I have something extra to do, when I book an appointment, I don’t know if I’m ever excited for the actual appointment, I’m excited for what it will bring, in some cases opportunity, in some cases potentially financial increases but never because I actually want to be more busy. I may be contradicting myself a little here because for now I’m one of those that needs to be busy or seems to be busy. I really am running from appointment to appointment most days, or give myself a time frame as to when I will accomplish something, whatever it may be. But that’s because I made that decision, because I want to be/seem busy.
I try to do things efficiently, with just about everything I do, which one would think would give more free time but that’s not usually the case. Doing things more efficiently often gives me one more thing I can add to the list, instead of one less thing I think I have to do.
So I’m going to give myself a short term goal. I wouldn’t consider this lazy (although I’m sure many people would). I have a mind set of working smarter not harder, getting the same results in a shorter amount of time. When I tell people I don’t want to increase the hours I work, I want to decrease my hours and increase financial abundance they look at me like I have 3 heads. There’s a number of reason as to why I want this or think like this in which I’ll get into in another post, but the short, efficient answer is, because it’s possible!
So my short term goal isn’t to be busier, it’s not to tell people how busy I am or how little time I have to meet. It’s to have MORE time, not only for myself but for others as well. I’m going to work on being more efficient so I have more free time instead of more time to devote to another idea or project or meeting. When someone says how are things going, I’m going to see if I can reduce the word ‘busy’ as my answer. What if every time someone asks you how things are going you don’t bring up the word busy at all. We don’t say, how well things are going and how little time we have because we need to look important. Would the perception of us be that different if we said, ‘things are good, I have lots of free time!’
So next time you think about how busy you are, think about how busy you really want to be, think about how you could be more efficient so you have FREE time. Time for yourself (to work out, to read, to spend time with family), time for YOU. Not do things quicker or more efficient so you can add one more thing to your list. We’ll do it together.