Stop wasting your time, and take control of your life!  An awesome life will not come to you.  You have to go and find it.   Waiting for tomorrow to start finding yourself, is like setting today on fire and hoping it’s ashes will turn into something great.

Over the weekend, I texted a friend to hang out.  I was excited to see her.  I wanted to have fun, and do something adventurous, and escape my normal routine.  Our phone conversation went something like this:

“Hey, it’s beautiful outside.  Let’s go explore somewhere fun?”

My friend responded, “Sure, but I have some family to see first.  I’ll call back later this afternoon when I am free.”

I was excited about the day when I hung up the phone, but that feeling would change.  Rather than getting busy doing something else, I decided I’d wait around for my friend to call me back.  I sat down on the couch, opened my computer, and began surfing the web trying to pass time.  

I wandered through internet doors of never-ending information for hours. My mind consumed the websites and videos like they were candy.  An hour passed.  Then a second hour slipped away as I sat inside on the couch.  The bright, warm sunshine outside began to fade and transformed into dark shadows on my front lawn.  It slowly started to get dark out.

The next thing I knew, the hope I had felt earlier in the day morphed into depression as I realized I had wasted the entire day waiting for an event that never came.  I sat alone in the darkness. Painful flashbacks of childhood memories became alive in my brain.

I once had a best friend who would always show up late to my house to play with me.  I would call her in the morning to hang out, and she would always say yes, and leave me hopeful and excited to see her.  But our time together rarely went so smoothly.

Normally, she’d often never show up and I’d waste hours waiting for her. I’d call her, and I’d find out she had simply forgotten about me.  It made me feel alone, and unimportant.  It made me feel like my life had less value than hers.

Because we lived in the country, I didn’t have a lot of other options for friends in our neighborhood.  I grew to accept this crappy excited-to-depression cycle as a normal part of life.  I started waiting for everyone else to come and make my life more interesting.  

This lifestyle change happened slowly.  As I waited for other people to make my life feel more fulfilling, I didn’t realize how much of my life I was actually wasting.  

The flashbacks from my childhood continued to shake me as I explored deeper into my feelings.  As a child, I fell into such a hole of numbness, that I lost track of how important my time was to me.  I started worrying more about other people’s schedules than I did about my own.  I became so afraid about missing out on time with other people, that I overlooked the time I had to explore my own life and find my purpose of life.  

This became the prison of sadness and depression that I became trapped in.  My whole life, I always waited for other people to create life experiences for me.  But when no one came to save me, I didn’t know how to create a life of adventure on my own.  I unknowingly had been choosing to waste my life, rather than investing my energy to create my life.     

This revelation struck my soul so deeply.  I could almost see it ripple into the dark room around me, shattering my loneliness like waves breaking the stillness of a quiet lake.  I have spent so much of my life worried about other people’s realities, that I have often missed out on the adventure to create my own reality.

I stood up, and I turned the lights on in my house.  Sitting at the kitchen table and realized that I needed to make a plan and take action to make sure I would never waste my time again.  I first went to God.   

“Help me understand my own life.” I prayed.  “ I need to start learning how to take control of my time to make my life extraordinary, rather than wasting it away.”

The biggest revelation of the day thundered back to me like it was shot through a spiritual tunnel:  If I want to feel alive, I have to learn how to master my time.  Flashbacks crashed through my mind like a mental lightning storm.  I saw at once all the memories that have made me into the person I am today.   Too many times in my life, I have given the power in my life to other people to control.  It was now time for me to take control of my life.     

I stood up in the kitchen light.  I felt changed.  My time now meant something to me.  I am important. I decided right there that I am now going to be the leader of my life.  There is a treasure out there for all of us to find.  Wealth can never be found if you choose to waste your time away.   

That night, I wrote down three goals to help me stop wasting my time, so that I can now start moving closer to finding my dreams:

Stop Wasting Your Time, Goal #1:  

I will stop waiting for other people to lead me to happiness.  Life is now going to be up to me to explore.

Stop Wasting Your Time, Goal #2:

I will be proactive discovering who I am.  I will no longer be reactive to the obstacles blocking block my path.   I am going to start planning my own path to success.  I am an adult now.   I don’t have to wait for anyone to show me the way anymore.  It’s time that I start creating the life I want to live with my effort and time.  

Stop Wasting Your Time, Goal #3:

I will intentionally work for success.  I will no longer daydream that success will just magically show up on its own.  I’ve learned that when I am unprepared for the day, nothing happens.  I am motivated to turn my life into a daily adventure.  I can create an awesome life if I focus my efforts and put in the work. This journey starts by me making, and executing, a plan.   

We are all called to be leaders of our lives life.  Learn from some of the mistakes I’ve made, so that you can find your journey and purpose in your life.

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