Date Night

Did you ever notice that it’s difficult to measure time? It can sift through your fingers and disappear or it can drag on for ever and ever. My Dad was in the Emergency Room recently and we were there for 7 hours. Fortunately, everything was ok and we took him home… but the waiting for each procedure to happen was PAINFULLY uncomfortable. It was like watching a slow motion clip from a movie…

And then, I was chatting on the phone with a very good friend the next morning and I looked at the clock and an hour had whizzed by and I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how.

This made me stop and think about how precious the time we are given on earth is. We all have the same 24 hours a day until we die.  And we get to choose how we spend it. You might be thinking…”I don’t have any choices… I have to do this…I have to go there…”

I’d like you to look back on how you got to your “have tos”. If it’s a job, you took it. If it’s some obligation you have with your child, well, enough said. If you are caring for an aging parent – again it comes down to choice. And there is always another way.

I’ve redefined how I spend my time in my business over and over. At one point I was balancing 3 coaching businesses and working for someone else. It left me depleted and depressed. I kept whittling it down, letting go of each piece until I found the perfect fit for me.

The result is a lightness of being I haven’t experienced since I was a child. Peeling back the layers of commitments I had gotten myself tangled into gave me a fresh look at how I can choose my experience.

My husband and I created  ‘Friday Date Night’ a few months ago. We don’t talk about it until Friday and it’s always a spontaneous choice…it could be a movie or dinner out, going shopping together or just calling it date night and staying home. We joke about it, but it’s infused our relationship with some extra giggles and a level of spontaneity that had been lacking after 15 years of marriage. I’ll tell you, on our date nights… time really does fly.