How often do you feel like you never have enough time? How often do you exclaim, “I just don’t have time for that”? How often do you spend time reading posts that start like this?

Let’s be blunt: “I don’t have time for that,” is a self-defeating mindset and it is a mindset that we are entrained to have. It is a badge of honor all-too-often that we “don’t have time to sleep,” that we’re “so busy we don’t really have time to make the move we’ve been wanting to make,” or that’s “something I’ve always wanted to learn but I just don’t have time to do it.” Stop.

You have time, you just don’t make time for something because either: 1) you don’t make that ‘thing’ a priority, 2) you haven’t really thought through what your priorities are, or 3) you’re actually a bit scared (or lazy even?) to do what it is that you want to do, so you … defer to option 1.

This is a continuation of a mini-series I’ve been working on about the mindsets we take on in our daily lives. In September I wrote about the mindset of “Awestruck” and in October I wrote about the “Beginner’s Mind.” The latter essay took a look at the new ways I can schedule my time because of my daughter’s school. And that process has prompted some break through ideas that I think are worth contemplating as abundance …

When I look at my time and schedule for the week, I have just about 120 hours after I factor in 7 hours of sleep per night. I make sleep a true priority by deducting it first, before anything else. 7 hours of sleep per night.

Now after that definitive statement, I have 120 hours. That’s actually a significant amount of time. Wow! I have 120 hours each week to consider. And there is the shift. Instead of thinking, I just don’t have time for anything, suddenly I’ve got 120 hours to decide how I’m going to use it.

Someone out there might be thinking that half of that 120 goes to preparing for, winding down from and going to work (that number probably varies a bit of course). But like sleep, haven’t you decided that work is something that you need and want to do? Whether it’s a means or an end, work is likely not something you can trade off or not do (if you can, take it under consideration: is work how you want to spend some of your abundance if you really don’t have to?). Otherwise, hopefully that work is giving your life some purpose.

So even after meaningful work, I have 60 hours a week.  Wow, that is still a good bit of time.  How am I going to spend it?  What are the most important things in my life? What are the most important things I need to do this week or today?  What do I want to accomplish that will help me move towards my monthly and yearly goals (under this mindset I have 250 or over 3000 hours to accomplish those monthly and annual goals respectively)?

By shifting from “I don’t have time for that,” to “I have 60 – 120 hours to make that a priority and to accomplish it,” I operate from a mindset of abundance. And that subtle shift to abundance motivates, inspires, and makes possible anything I actually want to accomplish.