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If you’ve been around here for a while, what I’m about to say might make me sound like a broken record… Time is my currency. That phrase and that concept has led me through some major life transitions, from becoming a full time business owner to pivoting into new opportunities and especially as I became a mom and we grew our family by two sweet little girls.
Those sweet little girls have given me even more reason to value my time above all else… And they’ve also been the wild card when it comes to how much time I actually have. When our second daughter was born, I was also about to move into one of the busiest seasons of my career yet, and I knew if I wanted to protect my time and fill the time I had wisely, I needed to tap into teachings from the best of the best when it comes to maximizing time. Enter, my friend: Marie Forleo.
Her reputation precedes her – she’s an entrepreneur, an educator, a best-selling author, and truly one of the select few voices I let speak into my life these days. I was curious about her program, Time Genius, during my last pregnancy but had this moment of, “Wait, do I even have time to take a course right now?” As it turns out, that is the precise reason WHY I needed her course, all about maximizing and utilizing our precious time.
Marie is back on the Goal Digger Podcast today to talk about time – how we spend it and what’s worth the investment, all the ways she’s maximized her time and became a Time Genius herself, and why “not having enough time” is a sign you’re ready for a new approach to time management.
P.S. Ready to dive in right away? Learn more about Time Genius from the one who created it. This is for anyone looking to spend their time in smarter and more meaningful ways.
Dysfunctional Relationship with Time
Marie Forleo hasn’t always been a time genius herself. “I have always been obsessed with how to become the most productive human I possibly can,” she told me.
“I coined the phrase multi-passionate entrepreneur. My whole life I’ve always had many different things that I want to do and I also have ADHD, so I can have a lot of trouble focusing and have a lot of trouble getting everything together. So you combine those two things, and the fact that I am this ambitious entrepreneur and [time] has been an area of study for me and an area, quite honestly, of a lot of pain and struggle for most of my life,” Marie shared.
“I was always feeling like no matter how hard I pushed myself, I could never get it all done. And I also realize now, in retrospect, how punishing I was to me, pushing myself beyond what I was able to do, because I was trying to reach some idealized version of who I thought I should be,” Marie continued, “And never quite measured up. Even though I’ve always had fun in my life and I’ve always tried to find some level of balance, I don’t think until I really started to unpack my own dysfunctional relationship with time that I realized how torturous it’s been.”
Hacking Overwhelm
Have you ever felt like if you can just get through the next day, the next week, the next month, then everything would slow down for you? You’ve probably told yourself some version of that idea – that if you can muscle through your current overwhelm, everything will be fine. Marie found herself constantly saying the same thing to herself.
“I was constantly talking about how overwhelmed I was,” she continued. “And then there was one day in my kitchen where I had this moment and I heard myself saying how overwhelmed I was, and it was like, there was the higher self in me going like, girl, do you hear what you are saying right now? Do you hear how you keep reinforcing that? I was conditioning myself to live in this state. It had become so comfortable, so familiar.”
So Marie decided to change the inner narrative, “When I stopped and really recognized that, this magical phrase appeared in my mind. I didn’t think it up. It came from some higher source of wisdom that said ‘I don’t do overwhelm.’”
She continued, “Understanding a little bit about neuroscience, whatever we say to ourselves repeatedly in the privacy of our own mind actually becomes our reality. So I took that magical phrase and said this is now my new mantra. I started to bring so much awareness to every moment of my day when I was starting to go into that place.”
It was a game changer for Marie. She told me, “Since I took that stand for myself, made that neurological change, changed my brain, changed my emotions, I am not kidding you, I have not been overwhelmed since.”
More from Marie Forleo
I invite you to hit play on this conversation with my friend, Marie Forleo, if you find yourself in a state of overwhelm, if you feel like your time is constantly held hostage by your to-do list and yet you don’t feel accomplished at the end of the day, or if you’re ready to make more time for the things that actually bring you joy and wonder.
Marie talks more about what’s inside her program, Time Genius, and I share my biggest takeaways – including my method to complete the course and implement the takeaways during the busiest season of my career.
Wanna see for yourself what being a Time Genius really means? Learn more about Time Genius from the one who created it. This is for anyone looking to spend their time in smarter and more meaningful ways.