The cost of your time

There can be both waste and value in our time. 

▪️WASTE 
Oh the time we waste: indecision, uncertainty, waiting for change, for the right time or until we feel ready? 

What if all that time was added up and displayed on a huge digital clock, flashing in front of us?

We’d shudder at the hours and days wasted. 


▪️VALUE
What results might be possible if we do a little each day? What if we spent 5 or 15 minutes? How would that also tally up and accumulate day after day?

It’s only a little bit of time, but each day it’s contributing to your goal or plan. 


If you’re tallying up waste, looking back on what you haven’t done, it’s not that helpful a space ... to berate, shame or criticize ourselves. 

Instead, do a little: everyday or several times a week.

▪️Writing a book: write 100 words
▪️Leading change: communicate each day
▪️Launching a business: do a small part each day
▪️Creating your own IP: collect an idea a day. 


The goal or dream is not a disaster if you didn’t achieve it all in one sitting. 

If you’d started 4 months ago, wow just imagine! 
Or 4 weeks ago, or 4 days ago. 
Or today!

There is massive value in our accumulated efforts - even when we don’t see the returns immediately.

Renegotiating expectations

When you’re working on a task, all the way through it ... right to the end, you can change your mind, anytime. 

We are allowed to renegotiate expectations, particularly the expectations we hold for ourselves. 

When I was researching the topic of perfectionism for my book “ish”, I learned about the different types of perfectionism we humans experience. 

One sort of perfectionism is about the standards we hold for ourselves, as we push on and on trying to reach an elusive perfect. 

These expectations may be invisible to others yet there they are, a standard we are constantly measuring ourselves against. 

The good news is, we can change these expectations. 

And it need not take long. We can do it almost instantly ... immediately!

We just need to ease some of the pressure we put on ourselves. 

Then our focus can go to the progress made, the achievements and the step by step we take, rather than how we’ve not met our expectations. 

You can release a pressure and expectation you hold for yourself. 

And this can become a healthy, helpful habit in the care of our selves. 

Naming the struggle

While guiding a group with mentoring advice recently, the most common statement in their questions and sentences was, ‘I’m struggling with…'

Learning, growing, changing and adapting is indeed a struggle. 

And it’s being magnified further in these times! 

Struggling - in less violent terms - is about doing one’s best, but I wonder, what is it that we are doing in struggling?

Are we :
- Getting used to ...
- Annoyed or frustrated with ...
- Trying to understand ...
- Debating or weighing up...
- Confused about ...
- Taking longer than we expected?

All of these situations could indeed be a struggle. And I wonder if that feeing of ‘I’m struggling with…’ is worth redefining or renaming, rather than bundling it all up as struggling. 

Acknowledge it is a struggle. Yes. 

And then explore what else it is: whether it’s a frustration, an obstacle, a question, or just another a step along a path of change. 

Perhaps it’s more challenging than we’d liked, hoped or expected. 

On expectations and standards

Expecting something to be different than it is? 
Wanting someone to reach higher standards? 
Expecting more of yourself? 

Expectations and standards are often invisible and internalized.

We notice when standards we have aren’t reached and people we work (and live) with may have little clue what our expectations and standards are ... until they’ve not reached them. 

Standards and expectations can be a tricky part of a perfectionist mindset. And we all have a little bit of perfectionist in us !

Our pursuit of more, better and higher can have no end. 

To make the perfectionist take a seat, declare and define what you’re actually going for and what you’re expecting. 

And if you’re a leader of a team, offer up your standards and expectations so people don’t have to guess, worry, overwork and lose sleep trying to deliver you the unreachable perfect. 

In 2019, I wrote the book ‘ish: The problem with our pursuit for perfection and the life changing practice of good enough’ - to help combat the ongoing rise in perfectionism the world over. 

Know what your good enough is and perfectionism won’t stand a chance. 

Minute by minute - hour by hour

It’s how we make sense when nothing seems to make sense. 

As facts change and there is new data, we know more. As more information comes to light, the situation changes and we learn more. 

Then we act again. 

As we learn more from those actions, we act again. 

It’s one of the best reasons for getting into action sooner. Sooner than you think you should. 

You’ll get hindsight and be able to look back on what happened, on how it went. We can’t know everything before taking action, but we can make adjustments once we’re in action. 

Get going on that project or task. Things will look different again once you’re underway.