This article gives insights into how and why you spend your time with who, at work and home, socially and otherwise. It makes a such huge impact on your life outlook.
There’s a saying ‘It’s hard to soar like an eagle when you hang around seagulls’ and ‘Show me your five closest friends and I’ll show you your future’. Some of the themes from these sayings are discussed further in this article.
Remember, most of our self-sabotaging tendencies come from wanting to fit in with the people around us. Our subconscious is always seeking out what is safe by picking up on the repetition and is constantly pulling us toward going along to get along. When you are tuned into the TV idiot box, every group of ads has junk fast food, pharmaceuticals, something fear based and adults behaving like children and a drama that no-one should care about. The TV program itself will have coffee drinking, alcohol, portraying the rich in a poor light and celebrating the underachieving battler who sedates themselves with something that is making them sick and unhealthy. If this is what you constantly expose yourself to, your subconscious will associate that behaviour with safety in the herd, whether you like it or not. Even just walking down the street there are café’s everywhere, fast food is highly accessible and cheaper than organic whole unprocessed food. Sugar is addictive and often hidden with crappy fats in foods to make them more palatable and we see people eating shit all the time. The microwave, non-stick cookware and ready chopped frozen pesticide and irradiated vegetables wait at home to make our lives easier and poison our bodies with convenience. The pizza box, take-away hot drink cup and lots of packaging has obecigen and estrogen mimicking laden chemicals. Most people have never hunted or grown their own produce. Like most others, we go to the supermarket to get our sustenance. We are highly distracted by constant digital stimulation most of the time and we get bored quickly and easily. We socialize online. Consumerism plays off convenience and we are often tied up at work with people we otherwise wouldn’t spend time with. All this trying to earn money to pay off the mortgage whilst we outsource our kids’ education and live for the weekend (weakened). Most of us seek pleasure with others and buy things to have fun in the limited window of free time outside of the rat race. We try and fit in.
Taking control of how you spend and make purposeful use of your time with who, is where the real benefit and potential personal fulfilment is.
For most of us, we spend eight hours plus commute at our workplace. Sometimes it is difficult to see what the workplace provides us outside of a pay check. If you have ever had a dream job taken away because of something like a bullshit health mandate, you will come to realize that you are always replaceable, despite how good you were at it or how much you cared and were a company man. Even top-tier special forces commanders have commented on this. You leave and someone immediately steps up and gets on with it. If your workplace only provides money you may want to try to value add to that time by getting more from your time investment at work. Maybe ask for new responsibilities that will increase the scope of a new skill set. If you don’t like having to deal with customers on the phone but know it could be beneficial to your side hustle – put your hand up. Better to polish the skill on company time right? Other examples could be invoicing, stock ordering and inventory management, banking, customer relations, accounting and a whole host of other skills that can help you set up for and slowly chip away at your own side hustle business. The side hustle is something you want to do to earn a little extra money from that you actually enjoy and work toward self-sufficiency. The extra tasks whilst at work could be something as simple as designing a poster / flyer (learning a software program) for an upcoming event or monitoring social media engagement or writing a proposal. Get creative and make your time at work pull double duty to learn a skill that can actually work for you.
If you have a work colleague who is an energy vampire and relentless whinger, do your best to not respond to them. Try only engaging when they are not annoying – they will subconsciously get the hint and only bring their best selves to the table when they around you. Train their behaviour how you would prefer it. On the same token if another colleague is maybe older and wiser with their head screwed on they may actually be able to offer you great advice about life outside of work. I know of people who have had a non-work friend they wanted to learn a skill from, that they went and volunteered their time with to learn that new skill. They also reciprocated when they had something to offer themselves. Try not to only look for what others can offer but give others only the attention they deserve. If someone is enrichening and value-adding to your life pay it back or forward. If someone is not worth your time – don’t give your time to them.
Once you clock off from work, leave work at work. If you have a company phone and aren’t on call, leave it in the car or your drawer at work. Don’t answer known work calls on your personal phone – let message bank listen to it then later screen your calls. Set boundaries and stick to them. If you’re not on the clock and getting paid – work shouldn’t get your attention. If you are self-employed this is easier said than done. Yes, it is good to be hungry, smash the work and build client base, grow at a rate that suits the work life balance but if your friends and family never see you – maybe you are living to work rather than working to live.
The time you spend in the car commuting can also be better utilized. Turn the commercial radio off and put on a positive podcast that you will actually learn something from. Make use of the digital company you keep. If the voice on the stereo is negative and speaking of self-sabotaging behaviour tune out and find someone who wants to better themselves and spread a good message. Audiobooks are great too. I have often bought the same paperbacks afterward for the bookshelf. Keep a notebook in the glovebox with a pen attached to it. You might find a mentor from listening to a podcast, deliberately or not, that you really resonate with. Their message may inspire and motivate you to get cracking and make positive change yourself and pay it forward by wanting to help others. A friend often calls me on his way to pickup his kids from school whilst driving, it is great to catch up with quality friends if you only have a short time – time that may otherwise be unutilized. If you have people in your life who are toxic – cut them out.
Being bored out of your brain if you deliberately don’t stimulate yourself is a great way to get creative ideas – but write them down! Don’t be afraid to spend time with yourself in the quiet. Journal, write down thing you are grateful for and burn post it notes with things that have bothered you for the day. Pay attention to your inner self-talk as the most powerful words you will ever hear are the words you tell yourself.
Gravitate toward the people who are quiet achievers. They aren’t flashy, gloat or boast – they just get things done. They almost never waste time or do things that undermine or self-sabotage their hard work done. They play the long game and look to no-one for approval or seek no accolades. They just get on with it. If they offer you help or good advice and you don’t take it – they just move on. Show gratitude if they made an effort. Use your manners then follow up with a picture message or quiet comment later with you acting on what they tried to convey to you. I go out of my way to do this and always remember when someone else has done the same. This is part of finding your tribe.
BLACKSHEEPSTRAIGHTSHOOTER
