By Madison Kirkpatrick
Otherwise known as “5 Keys to Owning Your Time,” Nate Chambers’ health talk began with small talk and greeting everyone who showed up early, which definitely built excitement and rapport. The goal of the talk was to prevent and overcome burnout of our time in order to create results, happiness, and meaning. The main takeaways and keys to owning your time were that you do have time, how to bookend your day, how to free yourself from stress, the win jar, and the average of the five.
As far as Nate’s history, five years ago he lived out of his car. He wanted to save money to start a business. This led him to his goal of empowering people to maximize their impact. He wants to help people remain positive through their actions and “own their time.”
He spoke about priorities and picking what we focus on. This involves defining your end goal and focusing on what is necessary to get you there. He used “Point B” as an analogy of an end goal and “Point A” about starting points. We need to create realistic goals and a plan to get from point A-point B. It’s important to recognize that our resources are limited and should be spent wisely. Often when we don’t reach our goals or make progress, we use our resources and burnout due to a lack of direction.
Time is our most valuable resource and we are all equally wealthy. We all have time that we cannot save. Spend it wisely! In terms of time, spending it wisely is up to you, but it can make the difference between time wasted and time used properly results, and lack thereof. Nate presented a time audit (how much time spent sleeping, working, commuting to work, personal development, etc.) It can vary depending on your schedule, but it is good to adhere to this audit as much as you can! Sometimes, though, even with the time audit, we have time that is unaccounted for. We spend this using social media, watching television, etc.
The best way to create results is by saying “no” and building habits. Nate spoke about the idea of productivity. Being busy is just that, but it doesn’t mean productivity. Productivity is focusing on things that bring you or your company value. The 80/20 rule is important here and allows a few key items to produce the majority of the results. It’s crucial to focus on what is most important. This will drive the majority of your results. The second way to be more productive is to bookend your day (schedule your time and create hard starts and stops to your day). We sometimes get caught up in doing extra work, working out during work hours, etc. This can be prevented by scheduling time to workout, finish work, spend time with your family, and more. The final step is to say “no.” We become busy by saying yes to everything, and by saying no, we put more time into what is important.
There are no quick fixes to life, which is where consistency comes in. We are told about quick fixes, but we don’t have habits that will help us maintain the benefits of said fixes. If we follow a regimen for 12 days, we revert back to old habits on day 13. The compound effect says that small actions repeated consistently over time add up to big wins. This can be applied to bad habits, too, like treating yourself to unhealthy food, which makes us want to make immediate changes. Finally, it’s good to break things down by taking a big goal and breaking it down into small, actionable, realistic steps.
Perception is created by past experiences and present expectations. Stress is perceived and can be solved by living in the present. Also, be sure to control what you can and how you react to external events. We can’t control what happens outside of us, but we can control our reactions. Finally, focus on F.R.E.Eing from stress. F.R.E.E. means to Focus, Reframe, Efficient Breathing, and Economy of Effort.
The brain is constantly learning and adapting, and one way that it does this is through neuroplasticity (the brain learns and grows). The Roger Bannister Effect states that we should simply believe instead of feeling like we have to see it to believe it. Roger Bannister ran a mile but had to watch someone do it to complete it himself, which is an example of where the mindset should come in that we should believe without seeing. Finally, as far as a mindset, the intent in which we approach something is important. Are we intending to create change and an impact or to go with the grain and assume changes will happen?
“Happiness is the sun around which success and everything else revolves,” Nate said in the talk. Happiness is the precursor for success and performance. Happiness and positivity will broaden our focus and advantage us in whatever we decide to do. Lastly, happiness takes effort. It can be created but needs to be worked at consistently. Some daily techniques that we can apply in our daily lives are meditation, having something to anticipate, conscious acts of kindness, infusing positive energy into our surroundings, exercising, spending money on experiences, and practicing gratitude (the win jar).
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