Where does the time go? Are you doing life your way? 

If you’ve been on Facebook for any period of time then you’ll be familiar with their ‘on this day’ notifications whereby they tell you what you’ve posted on the same day in previous years.

And while I’m not overly interested in what I posted on that day seven years ago, I do love seeing my photos from yesteryear. A lot of these are running related from my marathon and other races but what I love more than anything is seeing pictures I posted of my daughters. These are full of happy memories and key milestones and I love to show them to my girls and talk about their memories of those family days.

It being September, a whole load of these pictures have been school related milestones, like the mandatory ‘first day back for a new school year stand in front of the doo’r variety. If you have children, or any of your social media friends have them, then you’ve probably been scrolling through a bunch of these recently.

Today, some photos appeared from my eldest daughter’s first day of pre-school. Wowsers! I mean, she’s in year 5 now! Where did the time go!

Which is something I hear a lot from people I speak to – where does the time go?

I mean, seems like only the other week she was obsessed with Peppa Pig (rather than Ed Sheeran) and took a teddy wherever she went (instead of a fidget spinner):

 

 

Because it can seem like time just disappears before us can’t it?

And I can be guilty of just wasting time, and I don’t mean time relaxing, thinking or enjoying down time, I mean time that’s lost into the ‘nothingness’, that time that seems to disappear and then it’s time for bed and back up the next day to do it all again. Heck, when I was in my twenties, my evenings were mostly centred around getting in from work and watching a marathon of back-to-back soaps on TV with maybe a 30 minute gap somewhere in the schedules for me to get a drink and nip to the loo. (In those days you could go from Neighbours, into Home and Away, into Emmerdale, into Eastenders or Coronation Street and the omnibus edition on the weekend for good measure! I haven’t watched a soap for over ten years and I have not ever missed them!).

 

He Was Good At Watching TV!

The reason I ditched all that TV was because, at a seminar, they were talking about goals and making the most out of our one shot at life and we did an exercise where we went to a point near the end of our lives and looked back upon it from that perspective.

I can remember thinking something in colourful language to myself about how I was on course to look back on a life of watching TV. I could almost hear them at my funeral describing me, ‘he was always very good at watching TV’, ”he may not have done much else with his life but he could name all the characters in Eastenders’. Eek!

It’s similar to an exercise I sometimes run through with my clients, particularly smokers, to have them look down the path of their life if they carry on with their habit – how it affects them and those close to them, what regrets, frustrations and disappointments they can foresee experiencing. And then I have them look down the path having quit smoking and into a future where they feel happier and healthier and how this promotes what they want to do, as well as the impacts on those who love and care about them. Looking at the consequences into the future of the actions and decisions we make now can have a sobering and motivating effect that is enough to get us to grit our teeth and do something about it.

I’m wondering what you can imagine happening into your future if you keep up your current daily habits, behaviours and actions and watch them continue year after year?

Now I don’t claim to be the world’s best at time management and productivity, yet I’m positive I’m much better than I used to be.

 

It’s Time To Do It Your Way

The other day I was playing the ‘into game’ with my kids, where I go on you tube and play the start of a song and they have to guess it as soon as possible from the opening bars (personally I’m quite proud that they can name ‘Wigwam Bam’ and ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ in under 3 seconds!).

As part of the game I was playing some songs from the movie ‘Sing’ where (basically) cartoon animals sing some classic songs in a talent show.

One of these was the old Frank Sinatra classic ‘My Way’ which is perhaps seen as being a bit ‘stale and old’ these days (and always reminds me of how in every night club I went to in my twenties they would play Sinatra’s ‘New York’ at the end of the night as they put the full lights on to make us all clear off home).

Yet as I thought about the memories that had popped up on Facebook and the passing of time, I found the lyrics quite inspiring in terms of taking more action on my goals so that, when it comes to the end of my life, there’ll be a bit more to think back on than TV shows.

This is how it goes:

My Way

And now, the end is near
And so I face the final curtain
My friend, I’ll say it clear
I’ll state my case, of which I’m certain

I’ve lived a life that’s full
I’ve travelled each and every highway
But more, much more than this
I did it my way

Regrets, I’ve had a few
But then again, too few to mention
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption

I planned each charted course
Each careful step along the byway
And more, much more than this
I did it my way

Yes, there were times, I’m sure you knew
When I bit off more than I could chew
But through it all, when there was doubt
I ate it up and spit it out
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way

I’ve loved, I’ve laughed and cried
I’ve had my fill my share of losing
And now, as tears subside
I find it all so amusing

To think I did all that
And may I say – not in a shy way
Oh no, oh no, not me
I did it my way

For what is a man, what has he got
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way

Yes, it was my way

 

Right now I’m playing this every morning as I review my goals, my vision and my gratitude list. I find it uplifting and motivating right now.

One thing I’m working on right now is doing things more my own way, by which I mean consistently doing what is authentically me, more in my life. I’ll love more, I’ll laugh more and I’m sure there will be times that I’ll bite off more than I can chew. Yet I’ll be happy knowing I’ve done it my way.

So now it’s time to open you tube, whack up the volume and spend a few minutes contemplating what I can do today and that will move me more along the path of my personal goals.

To your success,

Dan Regan

Hypnotherapy in Ely & Newmarket

https://www.danreganhypnotherapy.co.uk/

 

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