Prioritize Your Health!

Show of hands; how many of you have said the following when faced with something you knew you should do?

“I don’t have time.”

Don’t lie.

We’ve all said it before. Even yours truly!

It’s almost become the default “Get Out of Jail Free” card. Have something you know you should do? As long as you qualify it with “I don’t have time” it’s okay to skip out on it.

No one will hold you accountable!

They will just nod empathetically in agreement.

• Don’t have the time to work out? Just rationalize that it’s easier to be okay getting winded after 5 minutes of playing with your kids.
• Don’t have the time to stretch properly? Just keep wondering why your muscles are always sore and unresponsive.
• Don’t have the time to shop for groceries or make a healthy meal? Just tell yourself you will start eating right next week and then order another pizza.
• Don’t have time to pursue your dreams? Just avoid any risks and keep plugging away unhappily at your job.

Remember… “I don’t have time” makes it all better.

The dirty secret about that excuse though? It’s a total lie!

Stop Lying To Yourself

Today we turn over a new leaf.

We are going to replace the disingenuous phrase “I don’t have time” with the much more honest “It’s not a priority.”

The first step to making any sort of positive change in your life is to start being honest with yourself!

I can’t count how many times I have had this exact conversation with people struggling to lose weight and get fit. It usually goes something like this:

Random Person – “I want to do X but I just don’t have the time.”

Me – “You mean X just isn’t a priority.”

Random Person – “No, no… I want to do X, but I really just don’t have the time.”

Me – “No, you have the time but you are prioritizing other things in X’s place instead.”

Random Person – “…”

When I get them to take a step back and embrace how the reworded excuse sounds, you can almost see the light bulb go off.

• “Eating clean isn’t a priority.”
• “Exercising isn’t a priority.”
• “Feeling good isn’t a priority.“

Saying it declaratively, instead of in the form of a weak excuse, really sounds different doesn’t it?

This shift in perception sets the stage for an honest re-evaluation of the activities we fill our days with.

A New Reality

I am just as guilty as the next guy, complaining that there aren’t enough hours in the day.

But when we complain that we don’t have the time or the money to accomplish something what we are really saying is –

“I have committed my resources to other things that are more important to me”

or more bluntly

“I don’t want this badly enough to rearrange my current lifestyle to make it happen.”

“Time and health are two precious assets that we don’t recognize and appreciate until they have been depleted.” – Denis Waitley

I have seen my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu coach, Julius Park, have this conversation with many an aspiring competitor. He lays out what it will take for them to achieve their goals, and more often than not they balk and say they don’t have the time to commit.

Yet night after night, instead of being in class training or studying film of their opponents they will be online, watching their favorite TV shows, staying up late playing video games, and so on.

That’s not to say there is no value in enjoying the latest episode of Game of Thrones or firing up your Xbox or Playstation and shooting hordes of aliens in the face, but if you say you want to achieve something you need to align your behavior with your goals.

Gandhi had it right when he said, “Action expresses priorities.”

This is called behavioral congruence, and it is paramount!

We’ve already established that our resources (time, money, energy, etc…) are limited. So we need to decide what our goals are, and then we need to decide what activities we must undertake to achieve them.

Remember, how you decide to spend your time is the embodiment of your priorities!

What Are Your Priorities?

Time is the one thing everyone has in common.

It doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like, or how much money you have, we all have the same amount of hours in any given week.

Have you ever wondered how some people seem to get so much done?

It’s as if they have a clone, or some magical bag filled with extra time, that enables them to do so much more than the average Joe or Jill during the week!

So what’s their secret?

They prioritize what’s important to them!

The truth is that everyone has the same amount of time each day. Those people that seem to be superhuman in their ability to be productive? They are just living by clear priorities.

Most people never really examine their priorities. They dart from interesting distraction to engaging interruption like an ADHD addled squirrel.

Stop it!

Where we choose (remember, these are choices that you make) to spend our allotment of weekly hours says volumes about what we view as our priorities.

So make the most of them!

I bet that if you take a little time and actually write down what you consider priorities in life on a piece of paper and then compare it against what you actually fill your time with, you will be shocked and appalled!

I promise you will be amazed at how much time you can find when you start stripping out the things that aren’t priorities from your life, leaving room for the things that are.

Where do you spend your time?

I bet if we applied the same methodology for keeping track of our fitness to everyday life the results would be eye-opening. If you find yourself constantly saying “I don’t have time” try tracking your time over the next week.

Just keep running track on a notepad (don’t do it on your phone lest ye be distracted by Candy Crush Saga) in 30-minute blocks. Just jot it all down. How much time you spend playing on Facebook, watching TV, talking on the phone, etc?  I bet you’ll be surprised.

And before anyone says it, yes I am suggesting you spend time tracking the time you say you don’t have. This short-term inconvenience will potentially pay huge dividends in the long run though, so suck it up Buttercup!

Take your list of priorities and your activity log for the last week and then compare!

Suddenly… time magically will start appearing!  

• The amount of time spent playing video games becomes painfully apparent.
• The hours in front of the TV all add up to an embarrassingly large number.
• Time spent sitting at your desk “working” while really surfing cat videos on YouTube becomes clear.
• Those jobs around the house that you constantly tinker with but never actually finish, yeah that time adds up too!

Saying something is important doesn’t make it so, doing it does.

I know I can get a simple 20 minute workout done in my house. I can also whip up a healthy meal in 15 minutes.

So I refuse to accept the excuse “I don’t have time”!

Be honest with yourself, re-prioritize your life and reap the benefits.

• Priorities help you focus – It’s amazing what becoming clear about what you want in life does; everything becomes much simpler.
• Priorities help you commit – Self-discipline and willpower is easier to maintain when you know what you are working towards.
• Priorities enable you control your life – It will give you the power to cut off things that are not essential to your end goals.
• Priorities help calm your mind – Once you admit that something is not truly a priority you can stop beating yourself up for not finding the time for it.

So here is today’s challenge.

Erase the phrase “I don’t have time” from your vocabulary. Batman judo chop yourself right in the throat if you catch yourself uttering it (and you thought you were going to make it through an article without a Batman reference… silly readers)

Instead, be honest and say “it’s not a priority” and see how you feel about it.

Now go decide what your actual priorities are!  

Leave a comment below and own up to something you’ve been saying is a priority but hasn’t really been, and what you are going to change so that you can free up the time to pursue it.

(Photo #1 credit) 

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