Why do you work everyday? This is the most important question you can ask yourself. When was the last time you asked yourself this question? Nothing changes for you until you ask yourself this question and have a real answer for it. Your life and your time has very little purpose until you get this down. For most people, if you ask them this question, their answer will be, “because I have bills to pay”. Is that your answer? If it is, I want to help you re-evaluate your thought process. If for a long time you’ve been working year after year and you are still in the same place and you’ve noticed that you are stuck, it’s probably because you haven’t asked yourself, “what am I working for?”.
The majority of people have never asked themselves this question. Here’s another question, if you spend 50 years of your life chasing one thing and still don’t have it, did you figure it out? If a bodybuilder spent 40 years in the gym and supposedly spent their days eating right and at the end of it, he gained 10lbs of muscle and isn’t much stronger than the average guy, was he really a bodybuilder? My point is, if you spend 50 years chasing one thing and you still don’t have it, you’d have to understand that you didn’t know what you were doing. That’s hard to swallow for someone that has found themselves in this position. This is the formula people are buying into and following year after year – selling time for money until they are buried.
Two things keep you from what you want, doing the wrong thing or doing the right thing the wrong way. It is so easy to work 20 years and not have a clue what you’re working for or ever ask yourself what you’re working for. Why? Because it’s the only method of income generation that is taught and everyone else is doing it and no one questions the system for a second. The most dangerous thing you can do is not think independently.
Understand that you are part of a game, part of a system. It’s a game that you plugged into as soon as you were born whether you asked for it or not. When you ask yourself, “what am I working for?”, that’s the beginning of unplugging from the system and creating your own game. If you wake up 5 days a week and work 8 hours a day just to pay bills, you will die a slave, – financially and mentally. You better know why you work because one thing you can be sure of is that your employer knows why he opened that business and definitely knows why you are working for him.
Understand that you are taking time away from your life and from your family and are investing the vast majority of your weeks growing someone else’s business and dreams. What about your dreams and goals? How much time do you spend working on that? How many hours do you spend a day working on your dreams? – or do you clock out when you get home? The biggest mistake you can make is allow your job to get you too tired to come home and clock in for your dreams and goals. This is what happens everyday to millions of people in the U.S. alone.
If you were to work for 50 years for someone else and at the end of all of that time, you finally solved your financial problems, then maybe it could be justified. However, who have you met that has played that game and at the end of it, they were sitting pretty and living the lifestyle they’ve been working for? It requires foresight to change lanes way before you continue driving towards a dead end. But playing that game is suicide and don’t wait until you hit that dead end to realize ‘someone’ gave you the wrong directions. It will be too late and you won’t get a second of your life back.
So What Should I Do to Get More Time?
Step number one is to figure out what you want and why you want it. Write down what you value most. In most cases, it’s what most people value – time with your kids, time with your friends and family, time with your significant other, traveling, and the ability the pursue hobbies. Everyone wants security and peace of mind. Two things that you will not get until you take control of your own world. Step number two is to understand the value of your time. Everyone’s days are numbered and all we have is time. Everyone has to start somewhere but don’t finish where you started. The only way to avoid this is to value yourself and your time. If you value money, your actions will be focused to attain money. If you value time, your actions will change to attain time.
Value time above all things. By raising your value you can raise the value of your time. Figure out what you can build of your own after work. Put in 8 hours for your employer and then come home and put in 8 hours for yourself. Are you not worth it? Is your family not worth it? Are you employer’s goals more important than yours? If not, then you know I am right. Build theirs and yours until you can build your own full-time. The goal should be to buy your time back. This is the only way to have true freedom – when you control your own finances and hours, the ability to come and go without having to ask for permission. It does not matter how long it takes you. Build yours until no employer can pay you enough to give them your time because you took care of the problem and you no longer value the dollar like everyone else.
