I have a friend – let’s call him Ajay – who a few months back promised himself he’d finish one book a week. Before long he realized he was too busy for this. He works 50 hours a week, is lovingly married, and has two adorable dogs to walk every evening…So he brought down his goal to one book every two weeks! But… that didn’t work either. Last time I checked, Ajay is still struggling with his goal – and he’s brought it down once more to one book a month.
When you think about it, Ajay’s story isn’t all that unusual. In fact, it happens to all of us. You visit your local bookshop, see tons of books you want to read, and realize you’ll never find the time to finish all of them. Instead, you end up wishing you could suck in all those stories just by staring at their covers. Unfortunately, the endless demands we face at work, with family and friends force many of us to underplay, and sometimes even sacrifice what we would love doing.
But it doesn’t have to be that way: What we need to do is to prioritize work: Let me give you an example: I have a friend, not Ajay, but another, who’d decided years ago to become a contractor and started doing well. Last week I received a call saying he was in hospital and rushing there found the poor fellow was on the edge of a nervous breakdown and talking quite incoherently:
“What happened?” I asked his distraught wife, “Business down?” “No business up!” she said and as I looked surprised, she carried on, “My husband doesn’t know how to refuse a job!” And that was the problem with him. He stretched his time thin by taking up every contract under the sun, even ones he didn’t need, “Why?” I asked. “Because he feels somebody else will get it! So, he grabs it!”
That is what most of us do, don’t we? We do job after job, because we don’t want someone else to do it, not only because someone may displace us, but because we feel others won’t do as good a job as we do! Learn to allow others to do the little jobs, and maybe the not so little jobs too, so that you can see yourself reading that book every week or taking weekends off or spending quality time with the family.
Prioritise your work and live life fully..! Learn to say no when you have to say no, And see life change for you, Learn to go where you want to go, And do what you want to do..!
