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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Making time for it all

Many people may not know this about me - I'm very selfish with my personal time. More often than not, if I'm not running or working, I'm content to just do nothing. And when I mean nothing...seriously, I mean nothing. I know, it's self-centered and very unproductive when it comes to life in general.

That's why this year, I had resolved to make some changes.

Changes in my priorities.
Changes in my attitude.
Changes to what's really important.

Up until last weekend, they were fleeting notions of grandeur however. But as you may recall, during my last race, I struggled pretty hard with the guilt that I was spending precious time away from my wife and kids.

My epiphany is really not that grand, but with so many priorities in our lives, it is often hard to find the balance between everything we want to do. I often preach to my team at work that time management is one of the keys to success - that without it, we get randomized and lose our focus.

That's me at this very moment - feeling somewhat randomized with all the things I want need to do in my life.

Kids - Work - Wife - Home - Friends - Retirement - Parents - Pets - Taxes - Health

I know you probably have the same list of things in your life as well. When you consider that we spend at least half of our waking hours each day at work, there is often little time (and motivation) to focus on these 10 other things.
  • I want to be an unselfish parent and attentive father to my kids.
  • I want to be a supportive and equal partner to my wife.
  • I want to have a successful long-term financially viable future.
  • I want to be a healthy and active role model for my kids, family and friends.
I'll never say that I'm "sacrificing" my running to make these things a priority but I will say that I'm changing how I spend my time. Balancing the needs of the many, rather than the one. And while I do feel a tinge of guilt that I've completely blown off my running schedule this week, I revel in the fact that I allowed many other things to be the priority rather than just me, me, me...

I honestly don't know what the right answer is - and if you've read this far, you may not know the answer either. I just know that I want all the best things in life - for my family and myself. And that takes just as much work as training for any run or triathlon - maybe even more.

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