Unlocking Your Best Year Yet: A Tactical Guide to Prioritize Health and Happiness in 2024

Happy New Year!

I hope 2023 was an amazing year for you and in the pursuit of health and happiness I hope 2024 is even BETTER!

To ensure that, it is critical that we take a look at where our time and energy will be spent in 2024 based on who we desire to BE. 

And if you are reading this email, and have been reading my weekly newsletter for some time, then you likely value growth, health, mindset, fitness and living a great life.

A couple of years ago I heard something that inspired a big change for me in regards to goals.

"It's not that you don't have time, it's that you don't have your priorities in order."

That hit me in the face pretty good because at the time I was driving around the whole Chicagoland area working with my clients in-home. I'd sometimes drive 2 hours roundtrip to meet with a client for 1 hour. If I saw 3 clients that day that could easily be 8-10 hours of my day. This was without time spent programming, research, etc.

Think about it, we ALL think we are busy. We ALL wish we had more hours in the day. 

But NONE of the people who are fit, healthy and live a life that you envy use that as an excuse to not get their shit done.

So I knew I had to change something.

What I realized was that I wasn't making very good use of my time. In fact, 3 training hours with clients compared to 5-6 driving hours was the least productive use of my time. So I literally started my business over almost overnight. I had to make it make sense based on the life I wanted to live and the standard I wanted to meet ( which was work with more people and have time and location freedom.)

This was obviously scary and not easy, but I knew I didn't want to be 40 and driving back and forth to peoples houses while my family waited for me at home.

This thought scared the shit out of me.

But to create that I had to get clear on what I wanted, what the first step would be, and how I was going to spend my time and energy to complete that.

To create clarity you have to understand that we have 4 human jobs.

-Make and manage money
-Build and sustain health physically and mentally
-Build and nurture relationships
-Nurture spiritual or religious ideologies.

We all have these job one way or another. Not investing time and energy into these doesn't make them less true. To live a great life, we must be clear on what our goals are with each of these 4. Once we are clear, we can then dive into what it will take to achieve them.

But as important as that is, we must also bring awareness to how we spend our time, which is what the primary focus of this newsletter is today.

There are 4 ways in which most of us spend our time through the context of our human jobs.

-Work
-Family
-Social
-Leisure

When it comes to hours in the day, this is where it goes.

Some of these may seem to have some cross over so lets define them.

Work.
This is time spent on your business, job, etc. It consist of meeting, tasks, management or whatever is required of you day to day.

Family.
This is time carved out for the kids, partners, spouses. It also is your extended family, so think Sunday dinners at mom's or visits to other extended family members. For many this could also be the same as social time. For me, because I don't live near family most of the year they are different. For you this may not be the case.

Social.
This is time with friends and can be in or out of the house. Maybe its dinners out, or cocktails on the weekend. It can be anything that nurture new or old connection and relationships.

Leisure. 
This is anytime spent outside of work, social, family and chores. Think of this as YOU time. Could be the gym, reading, any self care, walks, TV, movies, scrolling, etc.

This is traditionally the most misused area of time based on people goals.

So now that we know where many spend their time and how they are defined, we want to take a look at how much time are we spending in each area.

At this point it may be useful to take inventory on where you have traditionally spent most of your time. You can look back at your calendar for the past month to get a basic idea. You can label each category with a different color and backtrack, and fill out your calendar to see what it looks like. Apps on your phone will actually tell you how much time you've spent on your phone or app as well. This is always eye opening. 

But here's the thing....balance doesn't mean all four areas getting 25% of your time. Maybe you're not that social? that's cool, but that time is going somewhere.

So instead of it looking like this:
Social 25%, leisure 25%, work 25%, family 25%

It could look like:
Social 5%, leisure 55%, work 35%, family 5%

Or any combo of percentages. This will determine your priorities.

In all honesty, what matter most is how you spend it going forward. So based on your goals for the year, month, week you want to go through and fill out your calendar or notes with where your time needs to be spent and on what tasks or habits.

For example, you want to lose weight, get stronger, increase your energy in 2024.

Through awareness you find out that your leisure time takes up 55% of your time, but it is also spent on social media or TV 90% of the time.

This is not aligned, and since leisure time is limited, you must now prioritize that time further based on your goals.

Now the thing here is if getting your health in order is the primary focus for 2024, then ALL areas need to be considered through this lens. Social, family, leisure and work ALL get filtered through the overall health and wellness goal, meaning that if you want to lose 35 lbs this year, then you need to look at, gather awareness, and align your social life with your overarching goal. Same with your family time and work schedule and habits.

For family, it'll be placing boundaries on food and habits. For work, it'll be closing the computer at a reasonable time each night to get adequate sleep. Leisurely, it'll mean more walking, meal prepping and gym visits compared to time spent on the couch with the remote.

Among many other things.

I realize this may seem like a lot, so lets summarize.

You likely spend your time in a mix of 4 areas.

Social, family, work, leisure.

How you spend this time and what you do are creating your life. If you want your life/health to change you must examine how you live in these 4 areas.

If losing 40 lbs is your goal, You must then navigate these 4 areas through that lens and act accordingly.

Hopefully breaking it down in this way gives you a place to start while you examine your year going forward, and remember you wont be perfect. The idea is to filter actions, habits through this practice and make adjustments as needed.

Let me know what you think and email me back. Is it helpful to categorize your time like this? Is it useful to you to label your "human jobs" in this way? 

Would love to hear from you.

As always, if you'd like help and support in the process, you can apply for coaching below to see if you'd be a good fit.

Until next week...