October 7, 2011 | Posted in: Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully

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Opportunity Costs: Choosing Your Time & Energy Wisely

Our time is our life energy. We trade our life energy for moments in time. Are you trading your time and energy for something that matters most to you or are you squandering it away. I see it all too often when consulting with corporations and public agencies that so many are racking up promotions, possessions and personal bests at the expense of something that matters even more such as enjoying a life well-lived.

What is the opportunity cost of your choices. What is the benefit or value you must sacrifice when you choose to invest in one opportunity and by default, walk away from another?  We’re bombarded by opportunities and requests for our time daily. Where are your boundaries and what do you choose? How do you choose? By what standard do you measure the parameters on your time and therefore your life energy?

When you’re on the edge of making a decision to move ahead with something that’s going to demand your time, focus, commitment and energy; it may serve you well to consider some of the opportunity costs of your decision. Some questions to ask may be:

1.   What impact will this have on my family or future?

2.   How does it affect my most valued resource, my time?

3.   In what ways does it support my life purpose and in alignment with my goals?

4.   Is it moving me towards or away from my ideal life?

5.   Is this something that I want to do or that somebody else or society wants me to do?

6.   Does it reflect my values?

Of course the foundation of this is really knowing your goals, desires, dreams and purpose by which to measure if you’re off course or not. Don’t know your purpose? Then contact me to learn how your life purpose is revealed in your fingerprints. We can now crack the code to your calling and it’s all in your hands. There’s a free teleclass on the site, or contact me at Gaia@GaiaHart.com to ask about the Fall-iday Special Consult to reveal your true purpose so you have a baseline. Once you know what you’re supposed to be doing, the universe conspires in your favor to make it happen. But you’ve got to take action in the right direction first and make good choices by evaluating your opportunity costs of those choices.

So when demands are put on your time, or you demand something of yourself, whether it be training for a triathlon, learning to paint, aiming for the corner cubicle or taking your company public; think of the opportunity cost of doing such a thing and take a gander how it measures up to your bigger picture goals, desires, dreams and values. There’s always a cost to do what we do. That is, as they say, the cost of doing business. Is that cost affordable or not? Are you willing to pay the price and to put the time in? Are you willing to live another day not knowing what it is you’re supposed to do with your life?