The Triple C Project

Creating Space for What Matters Most

• Ryan Spence • Season 2 • Episode 118

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Imagine treating your calendar entries as sacred commitments to yourself rather than a mere list of tasks dictated by external demands. We explore how this mindset shift can lead to a life that's fulfilling and truly 'lit.' 

Learn how aligning your calendar with your true priorities can dramatically enhance your sense of purpose and joy. 

This episode empowers you to assess your current schedule against your core values and make necessary adjustments so you intentionally make time for you. 

Reclaim your time and energy, and start living life on your terms according to your priorities and values.

 Share your own experiences and insights—together, let's make time for what genuinely matters.

What's your one takeway from this episode? Send a text & let me know

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Speaker 1:

Instead of continuing to fruitlessly wish for more time I wish I had more time. I wish I had more time why not make your calendar reflect the things that you consider important and block out that time for you? You're listening to the Triple C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live life lit. I'm your host, ryan Spence, the Big Law Dropout, life coach author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip-hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now we're friends. I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey, welcome to episode 118 of the Triple C Project. Date for you to remember November the 17th, which is a Sunday, 2024. Release date of my new book, the Triple C Project Find your place, purpose and peace in a world that wants to box you in. It's the book you need if you are feeling a little restless, a little uncertain, a little lacking in direction, or, as one client said to me, feeling lost at sea. It's going to help you to get back on track, to reconnect with who you are and what's important to you, and it's going to give you actionable tools and strategies to help you overcome overwhelm, to help you shut out the noise so you can focus on what's most important to you. It's going to help you recognize the importance of your mind, body and breath working together, not as separate entities, and of finding stillness and yeah, finding your place, purpose and peace. As the title states, it was a labour of love. It's one of those where the first book was relatively straightforward to write. This one caused me a little bit more angst, shall we say, but I'm really proud of what's come out of it and I'm really excited for you to get your hands on it. So it's available to pre-order right now. Head over to the Rocket Store, amazon. Unfortunately, as a writer, it's the best place to get your books to the widest audience, so you can go there and pre-order. It's the best place to get your books to the widest audience, so you can go there and pre-order, get it at the pre-order price and if you want to dive in and really get started and just get a sense as to what the whole book is about, still got access to a free chapter, to the introductory chapter. Head to my website, iamryanspencecom and you will see the pop-up box or the link there to download your free chapter. I'll also drop the link in the show description so you can go ahead, get reading, maybe get started on some of the exercises, so you can find your place, purpose and peace and, you know, start to cruise in towards the end of the year and into the coming year in a place that's just feeling a little bit more easeful, feeling a little bit more content.

Speaker 1:

Okay, um. Next thing, yoga. So my Wednesday online yoga classes, um are on a short break as I will be on holiday. I'm very excited about that. Well, I'm actually on holiday, um, for one week and then another week. I've actually got um a talk slash presentation that I'm delivering um down in good old London town. So I will be back on the mat on the 13th of November. So I encourage you to go ahead and book your spot. 45 minutes, it's going to take you out of that midweek slump, leave you feeling energized, feeling reconnected with yourself and, if you can stick around for a few minutes at the end, you kind of get to get to know some people who are in a similar position to you, and my wish for this Wednesday class is that over the course of time, we start to build up a nice community, a community of people stressed out, corporate execs, lawyers, people stressed out corporate execs, lawyers, people who are feeling a little bit meh, and you can all just connect and realise you're not alone and share some of the things that are getting you down, also share some of the things that are lifting you up, some of the ways that you are changing your own life for the better and taking control. So I'm really excited. It's still very, very early and it takes time for these things to build up. So I'm really excited. It's still very, very early and it takes time for these things to build up, but I'm really excited about the vision that I have for this Um and the offshoots from that, which would include um retreats and workshops, uh, other exclusive goodness just for you guys. So, uh, head to imranspencecom slash yoga to find the dates that work for you, book your spot and again, I will drop the link in the show description also to make it easy for you, because I'm nice like that. Okay, let's get to the show.

Speaker 1:

So this week's episode is inspired by my last couple of weeks of client sessions. I've had three clients for one-off sessions. Actually, I don't often do one-off sessions, but these were referrals to me and that was the deal. So they each had a 90 minute session all lawyers and all dads, and they all had the same situation, and it's a situation that I've heard of before, but I just found it interesting that they were all coming from different places but all seeing me within a similar period of time and all, in their own sort of words, enunciated this specific issue that they had. And I'm sure it's an issue that you have, something that you either have dealt with or are dealing with. So I figured I'd dive in and just riff on that a little bit this week in the hope that it helps you start to think about things differently and make some shifts and changes.

Speaker 1:

So what am I going to talk about? I'm talking about time yes, time or lack of time, because that's often what the frustration is. It's this sense that I just don't have enough time to do the things that I want to do, and often a big aspect of that is work is so demanding this requirement to your expectation to always be on call. If you've got a presenteeism culture, where you're expected to be at your desk between certain times even if there's nothing going on, and even when you're not at work, it's feeling that work is still in your head, like you just can't switch off. And all of these lead to an erosion of time, a feeling that you lack control over your time, a feeling that you don't have enough time. So this was what was coming up for each of these clients.

Speaker 1:

They all wanted more time to spend on the things that they said were important to them, their priorities. Now, slight side note on priorities, although it's probably a subject for another podcast, but I looked at the definition of priority and the definition is a thing that is regarded as more important than others. So I guess technically you could say that you can only have one priority. You can't have priorities which are more than one. Maybe I'm kind of splitting hairs here and getting too deep into semantics, but it's something that I kind of occasionally ponder because I'm weird like that. But, as I say, that's probably a subject for another podcast once I've explored it more and come to my own sort of concrete thought on that matter. But anyway, back to the matter at hand.

Speaker 1:

They all wanted to spend time on things that are important to them and so when I ask the question, because you can say you want more time, okay, fine, you want to have more time. What would you like to spend that time on? What do you want to use that time for? It's all very well having more of something, but if you don't know why you want to use that time for, it's all very well having more of something, but if you don't know why you want it and what you're going to use it for, then it's actually not going to benefit you. But they were all pretty clear.

Speaker 1:

They all had very clear ideas of what they wanted to spend that time on, or some of the things they wanted to spend that time on. So they wanted time to go to the gym to kind of I I mean boost their energy, to kind of feel like they were back in shape, get rid of that lethargy. They wanted time to socialize with friends. They wanted more quality time with their family. You know, getting home and being able to sit and have dinner with the family, play with the kids, chat to your partner about the day and about what's going on, just about life, and share your hopes and dreams. They wanted time to be with themselves, no time to sometimes just think, just read a book, take some time out to to meditate. So these were just some of the things that came up for them.

Speaker 1:

Uh, so I'd like to think, as you're listening to this episode, if you're someone who's thinking I really couldn't want more time, what would you? What do you want to spend that time for? And get very clear on what you would spend that time for, what you'd spend it doing. So that was the first question what do you want to spend it for? And all of these answers came forth, which is great.

Speaker 1:

So then my next question was have you made time for those things? Is that time scheduled in your calendar? Is there anything that's in your calendar that's just for you, or is it full of other people's demands and expectations? Simply a ledger that other people can just drop things in that they expect from you? And universally, the answer was no. There was nothing that was in their calendar for them.

Speaker 1:

They had these ideas that they didn't have enough time and they wanted more of it. They felt that they knew what they wanted to do with that time, but that wasn't reflected anywhere. It wasn't something that they were seeing on a daily basis and were being intentional about carving out the time to do to spend on doing these things. And this isn't unique to them. This is something that I see often. It's more common than you think, and that's where the disconnect is, because you will say that you want more time, you really wish you had more time, and you will say that there are these things that are important to you that you would use additional time for, that you wish you had time to do, and you're saying it and it's true.

Speaker 1:

I believe that. You believe that it's true, right, but the problem is that you're not being intentional about making those things happen. You've got a calendar that's wide open. Now maybe you've got a work calendar and a personal calendar, and your personal calendar is probably empty or probably has birthdays in it, or dentist appointment or taking the kid to school or on a school trip. You know things which need to be done, but aren't necessarily things for you, and your work calendar is just wide open for meetings to be dropped in left, right and center, whether you had other ideas of doing things or not, and you just simply accept that meetings in there you've got to attend, whether you feel like it, whether you kind of want to do it, and you'd send up feeling resentful. But what are you doing to stop that from happening?

Speaker 1:

I, you know, I remember when I was at um, when I was still in big law, and there were times when I think, okay, I'm going to go to the gym at lunchtime or I'm going to go to this yoga class at lunchtime, but I wouldn't put it in the calendar because I didn't want anybody to see what I was doing. I didn't want to people to kind of feel that I wasn't available. Again back to this expectation of always being on, always being available. So I would kind of work, it would kind of get it to the time I would kind of be getting ready to leave. I'll kind of be gauging the situation, whether I thought it was appropriate or not, um, and there were many times when I missed the session because I either left too late or I just felt that it wasn't appropriate to leave, or somebody came in and said, oh, can you look at this thing or do this thing? Or the phone rang and I just kind of dealt with it because I felt that I had to, and so I had the idea of doing this thing, which I would say was important to me, is important to me to get to a yoga class. It was important to me to get to the gym, but my actions were not reflecting the importance, my calendar was not reflecting the importance, and so therefore, the effect was that the things didn't get done. Other people's things got done, other people's expectations were met, but I wasn't keeping the commitments to myself because I wasn't scheduling it. It wasn't in there.

Speaker 1:

I don't know about you, but when I write something down, I often find that when I write something down, I remember it better and I keep coming back to it more. And actually I have post-its all over my desk because I'll just randomly scribble things down and having the post-it just means that when I'm just gazing around, I will see it and it'll continue to remind me until it becomes almost second nature. So the thing that I want to do, I think of doing, becomes ingrained in my brain. But if you're not doing that and if you're not looking at your calendar on your phone or on your work computer and seeing things that are in there for you and being intentional about keeping the commitment to yourself, just as if you were committing to a meeting at work. Then it's not going to get done, you're just going to let it go. So what happens? Well, this is the beauty of coaching, because I didn't say to them you must schedule things in your calendar. I didn't tell them what to do. I didn't say to them you must schedule things in your calendar. I didn't tell them what to do. I didn't tell them what not to do either.

Speaker 1:

But through the process of exploring why they felt they didn't have enough time, what they wanted to use that time for, why they weren't already using the time that they had for that, they all kind of came to the position where by the end of the session they all had at least one thing scheduled in the calendar for themselves from now until the end of the year, like in there on the call. It was done. The time was blocked. A couple of the clients blocked out time for gym sessions. They were scheduled in week by week from now until the end of the year. Another client blocked out time for family, you know a couple of hours a day, when that was going to be their family time. That was the time that work was going to be switched off and they were just going to focus on the family and be present. Another one carved out time for family holidays next year. No, it's in there. It won't necessarily work, but the time is there. So they know that this is when we're going to be away, so they can start to work up to that time, scheduling the things they need to do in order to make that time happen, in order to make that holiday happen, and they all expressed that.

Speaker 1:

Having done that and having ended the session with those commitments to themselves because that's what they are, they're commitments to you A schedule in something in your calendar is a commitment right? By making that commitment to themselves, they started. They felt that they had a little bit more control over their time and then their life, right? So, look, I didn't give them more time. You know, like we all have 24 hours and, unfortunately, even with my amazing skills, like I can't give you more time, I can't create more hours in the day, and neither can you. We're just not going to get any more than the 24 that we already have, and so, if this is resonating with you, what I'd like to say is, instead of continuing to fruitlessly wish for more time I wish I had more time, I wish I had more time why not make your calendar reflect the things that you consider important and block out that time for you? Don't say to yourself in your head that these things are important and I wish I had more time to do them. Say to yourself these things are important and I'm going to carve out time to ensure that they happen.

Speaker 1:

To be intentional about making them happen, so that when you get up each day and you look at your calendar, you can see oh, there's something there for me. There's coffee with a friend who I haven't seen for a while. Or I'm having lunch with my partner today that's fun. Or I've got a gym session with that personal trainer. That works me really hard, but I always feel amazing at the end of it. Or I've got to walk through the woods for half an hour and I know that's going to really just clear my mind and relax me and reconnect me with myself, with myself, and notice how you feel, first of all by seeing these things in your calendar, things that are just for you, things that are important to you, things that you value that align with your values, and then check in with yourself after a week a couple of weeks, however long feels good to you and notice how you feel having actually done the things that you wanted to do, actually having made the time to do the things that you've said and been saying for quite a long time are important to you. And when you do that, tell me how it goes. Let me know how it feels Because, as I say for these clients, just by the end of the call they felt like a weight was lifted off.

Speaker 1:

I'm looking forward to kind of hearing what the longer term results are over time. But I know from my own experience, when I don't have things to look forward to, things that are for me, sometimes life can feel like a little bit of a slog. But when I know there's something on the horizon, like my holiday that's coming up, or, you know, like a particular event that's going on, or a film I'm going to see, or a catch-up with friends that I'm in the process of organising, a Christmas event that's coming up in November, then it's like, oh okay, I'm feeling quite excited, I'm looking forward to that. It helps to kind of get through the sort of down points of any day or any week, and it also brings me back in alignment with my core values, which ensures that I'm on track to be heading towards my mission, mission to living my purpose. So that's what I want to leave you with this week, and I really hope that you go away, reflect and take a look at your calendar, and I'd love if you could just drop me a line and just answer this question for me Does your calendar now, as it looks now, reflect your priorities?

Speaker 1:

Does it reflect what's important to you? And just shoot me a message, or you can send me a text. There's a link in the show description where you can just click that link and shoot a message over to me by text, and it's anonymous as well. So if you don't want your name to be known, you can just click that link and shoot a message over to me by text, and it's anonymous as well. So if you don't want your name to be known, you can just do that, or you can contact me on the usual channels Instagram, linkedin or email.

Speaker 1:

Hey, I am Ryan Spence, dr Com, and tell me yes, does your calendar reflect your priorities? And if it doesn't, that's a good thing. Right, that's good, because you're aware there's no judgment, but then I'd like you to take the time to ensure that it does and then come back and let me know how that feels. What shifts for you? What's different? Do you feel you're getting more done? Do you feel you're actually making better use of the time that you do have? So more time would be nice, but it isn't necessary in order for you to live the life that you want to live. That's it for this week. Thank you for being here. Go ahead, reclaim your time, take control of your time, and I look forward to catching up with you next time here on the Triple C Project. And until then, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life lit.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for tuning in to the triple c project. In the spirit of the triple c, here's three things that you can do to support the show head to rate this podcastcom, slash triplec or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how the show can help them. Second thing you can do share. Share this episode, share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three head to IamRyanSpencecom. Get on the mailing list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to. My new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here and until next week, stop living a life of lethargy, start living life lit.