This old Irish blessing is something I say early in January as I’m thinking about what this year may hold.
May you be healthy and happy
May your dreams all come true
May the best of the old year be the worse of the new
I know not every day or month is going to be stellar. I know there will be some challenges and things I learn from. Yet I always hope it is not that bad. I wish for the health and happiness to be so strong that the bad days and weeks don’t stop me much. After the year many of us had in 2020, I think a lot of us are wishing for this too.
So, when I think about what goes into the best week ever I see things like family vacation time, weekends at the beach and fun things I enjoy doing. I know I cannot go on vacation every week but what is apparent is I need to have more regular fun in my days, every week. There are also times that while it’s not my favorite I feel better after I spend time working out. My best week would also include time outside, preparing good meals, being able to pause for a minute to appreciate and feel grateful. When I finished thinking about what is in my best ever week I realize none of them are extraordinary or momentous things so why can’t I have more of them in my regular weeks this year?
What I have learned in my journey of living naturally well is what we prioritize is what gets scheduled in our weeks. We actually have more control over that than we realize too. Sure we have to work and that takes a lot of time. Our jobs get a lot of priority each week because they are important to our livelihood but how much of them have we used as an excuse for other things? Like, how often do we really need to do something and stay late for it that could wait until the next day? Work will never go away and there will always be something to do so repeatedly staying late isn’t actually accomplishing what we think most of the time.
Scheduling what matters is not a new concept but I’d like to propose something different in how we do it this year. Instead of letting time get away from us and saying we don’t have time, let’s go into this week with the idea of how we use our time. What is taking our attention? Is it hours on social media and we think it’s only 30 minutes? Is it crashing on the sofa in front of the tv after work because we’re stressed out and tired? Are we engaging with those we love every day by looking them in the face and asking about their day? It is often not the big blocks of time that get us progress and the big life changes we all wish for but rather it is the little minutes we all have and how we use them. This is where we can intentionally change how we feel, our relationships with others and where our life is going in a minute.
If you want to have the best week ever, start with how you spend your minutes. Where are all those little time wasters that you go mind-numb with that take away from where you could be connecting with a real human, taking a short walk, chopping a vegetable for a snack. If you hate your job but don’t want just another J.O.B. then where you are using your minutes to change what work looks like to you? Where are you tapping into what lifts your spirit to use every available minute to change what your weeks look like?
The secret sauce to creating the best week ever is truly in how we use our minutes. It only takes a minute to smile and hug our children to make them feel loved and secure. It only takes a minute to put on our shoes to be ready for a walk later. It only takes a minute to leave a message or text to a potential customer in your side business that will eventually be big enough to become your real every day, full time, happy, love my work dream. It only takes a minute to appreciate and show gratitude. The small things consistently and intentionally done in a week make it the best week ever.
When we feel alive and awake in our life we realize how much freedom we have at our fingertips. We put priority on the things that build on that feeling and we use our free minutes to see them grow larger in our life. This becomes an energy that draws us to it, taking up larger blocks of our time as it evolves. What we are doing makes us feel like us, gives us inspiration, lets us feel loved, gives us a sense of accomplishment and success. It lets us be our best selves. Yes, that loving, caring, happy soul inside us that often gets shoved in the back and buried far too often because they don’t fit into our work places and other areas of our life that have dominated our time for far too long.
If you want to have the best week ever, start by looking at what you do with your minutes. Look at your calendar and give it a hard shake of where you are prioritizing your time. Be honest about how much time you actually spend on social media instead of chasing your dreams. The best gift we can give ourselves is the gift of using our time to live our best life. Those moments are not just the big things like vacations and trips but rather what we do with the little minutes that when strung together build the life we want. The life that fills our heart and gives us that happy relaxed holiday feeling every single week in a year.
This year, if you’re looking to use your minutes to change the work you do, consider what it would mean to have your own business. What would being able to define your schedule feel like for you? Explore what partnering with me to see if it is right for you at dragonspitapothecary.com/