Have you ever noticed how your life seems to go by faster as you grow older? We’ve heard the term “time flys when your having fun” but when we look at our lives it doesn’t seem to be the fun part that that makes the clock tick faster. “Busy” seems to be the “in” thing of our century, if we’re not “busy” we’re not performing to the best of our ability. If we’re not “busy” we don’t have self worth. “I’ve just been so busy lately” seems to just roll off the tongue, it’s a legitimate excuse, isn’t it?

I have a four year old son, a full time job, and a part time hobby of going to yoga classes and writing “the Complete Yogi” articles, in anyone’s terms I’m a very busy person. I think you would agree with the fact that life seems to railroad out of control with the amount of things you need to achieve in any one day………………. especially once you have children.

Once I was a mother it didn’t take long before I was constantly telling my family and friends that I was too busy to see them. At first it was ok, they were sympathetic, I’d explain quite well how I was running around all day and was tired.

Weekends were taken up with just being a Mum, I had been working all week and felt the need to devote all my time to my family. I became like a cornered cat, ready to pounce out at anyone who would take time from my family. I was constantly guilty because of my need to say no to anyone who wanted time, and scoffed at anyone who might dare to ask if I was going to return to Martial Arts training. “When would I ever have the time for that?”.

Are you exhausted yet? does this sound like you?

Guess what? It wasn’t actually once I had children that I became “busy”.

Pre children……………….

Before I had children I worked full-time in a very demanding job. Taking work home was just part of the “deal” in order to achieve my work objectives. In order to “get ahead” in my career and step up the ladder that “extra” bit was always necessary.

However…….I also had passion for my hobby, which was martial arts.

The alarm would go off at 6am, I’d be up and to work by 7am. Steamroad through the day at lightning speed and move heaven and earth to ensure I was at my 6pm martial arts class. I’d then come home, have a shower and tea and then settle in to working for the next three hours for the night. I did this four times a week for nine years. The other nights I’d be either practicing martial arts forms, working or partying and yes I was in a relationship.

This might not be your story, of course yours might be a little different e.g being a student and having to stick to a gruelling study routine, working two jobs, raising a family of four, being a single mother and trying to just keep your head above water. At the end of the day, it’s the same story we all share, we are all “busy”.

When do we take time out for the things that make us uniquely different? When do we take time out for ourselves? When do we take time out to do the things that just simply make us happy? What is your passion?

How do we even find what our “Passion” is?

Our passion is the thing that makes us feel alive, the thing that we would do every second of the day if everything else just seemed to look after itself.

I won’t delve too deeply in this article about finding your passion but put simply, what in a perfect world would drive everything you do, make you happy and is so exciting you can’t stop doing it, is your passion.

One thing to remember is not to confuse passion with obsession. Passion makes you feel good and hurts no-one, obsession is the opposite.

But it’s not a perfect world, we all have other things that need to be taken care of first in order to survive.

How do you find the time for your Passion?…..

When I practised martial arts at times the pressures and pace seemed too much. I had to build a career and my hobby seemed to “get in the way” a lot. I struggled with the time management issues and at times thought I’d be better off if I just “gave it all away”. The relationship pressure was building and something had to give…….. this is where for me like most of us, the only thing we see as dispensable, is our hobby or interest area.

Bu...I didn’t want to!! the conflict was strong, but I wanted to keep my passion. ………………The challenge was how do do this.

I had to take a good hard look at where my day was going. How could I create more time to fit in everything that needed to be done and still persue my passion?

Make a little room in your life……………

Step 1: Prioritise!

Look at the things that predominately take the time in your day. Typically, you might say: Family, Work, leisure.

Family...

Family has priority, it’s what we live and die for, it’s what makes us safe and happy. If the world was going to end tomorrow would you say that you just had to go into work and make sure that unfinished job was finished? No, however we all have to eat, so family usually gives but it shouldn’t…….

Work....

If you’re not working and have chosen to stay at home as a full-time parent it can be doubly hard. Finding the time to even contemplate your passion is extremely exhausting. If you are in this boat, you don’t even get time for a lunch hour!

If you’re the number one bread earner and aren’t at home with the children you also have a story to tell. Work all day, come home, take the children off the partner because you know they’ve had twice as much pressure as you and then…….go to bed.

Think outside the Square of your Nine to Five job...

We live in an exciting age. Work life balance is creeping into every corporation and just won’t go away. Stess is the number one threat to organisations and not suprisingly they have had to now “address” the problem.

There are more demands in the work environment, downsizing of organisations have created long stressful work situations but organisations are not willing to pay the wages to take off the workload stress. Organisations have found that a cheaper alternative is giving their employees “flexibility”.

Note: if it’s not there already, be an example for your fellow workers and pave the way.

As a supervisor I often say to people “family is your first priority”. People I supervise who need to perform are not going to do it at 100% if there is something amiss in their family life. This is what most organisations are finding and might term the first step of “work life balance”, looking after the emotional state of their employees.

But there is more to it than that. It’s not only problems supervisors need to be mindful of, it is the balance of family life and work for their employees, before it becomes a problem.

Leisure....

Oh.. is there time for leisure? If so, probably after the kids go to bed, you’ve finished the dishes, did some ironing, finished that submission before tomorrow’s 8.00 am meeting, watched a good TV show and then slumped into bed totally exhausted. The leisure bit was probably that 30min TV program, what was it about again? made you feel real good, didn’t it?

Lets just dream for a bit. If you had leisure time what would you do with it, supposing you weren’t so darned tired? What do you love? Cooking, ski diving, surfing, reading, fishing, golf, gym, cycling, swimming, sewing, chess, videos, surfing the net, learning about new things, writing, music, dancing, philosophy, drawing, painting, meditating, running, camping, sunbaking, waterskiing, parachutting, flying, diving, human rights, saving animals from extinction and of course yoga.

Step 2: Make some time

How in the world do you find the time, let alone the energy?...

What do you waste time on? make a list. How many times a week do you go shopping? How many times a week do you “give time” to that friend that wants to talk about all their problems. How many times a week do you stay back at work to get “that job finished”, why do you need to get that job finished? Make sure your not “filling” in time just because you are “busy”. “How much time do you actually “waste” in your working hours?

Step 3: Commit some time

It only takes 15 minutes, twice a day.

Ok, if your passion is sky diving, this will definitely not work, but save those 15 minute sessions up and once a month there will be a whole day to take out and do skydiving, if this is your passion.

But if your passion is yoga, you can do this! How long does it take you to brush your teeth? Ok, we have to brush our teeth each day. How long does it take you to get ready for work, OR… what time do your kids wake? Just try waking up 15 minutes earlier. To compensate, go to bed 30 minutes earlier.

Once a week, just one hour per week…… devote the time to your passion, go to your yoga class or if it is not yoga. whatever your passion is. Beg, borrow, but please don’t steal to find someone to look after the kids OR convince your employer that you have an important “work life balance” session to attend to get to your passion.

Fifteen minutes, twice a day and one day per week. Just think for a moment, how much of your time do you waste in doing the things you don’t need to do.

Remember, your passion is the thing that makes you feel good! There are 168 hours in each week. All I’m asking is that you devote 3 and a half hours per week to yourself and your passion……at the very least.

Step 4: Things change but don’t give up, adjust...

We all get older and most of us have commitments that end up just too much for us to continue our passion. It doesn’t mean we have to give our passion away.

We can write about it, teach it or adapt it.

For me, Yoga is gentler on the body than martial arts. With Yoga I can still keep my muscle tone and flexibility. They both however, contain what my passion is, and that is to develop a holistic appoach to maintaining health and the development of spirit through physical movement and form.

So ask yourself. What is my passion? How do I persue it? and then go for it heart and soul. Add something to your life that has been missing for a long time or may have never even been there in the first place.

Guess what? it will make you feel good!