Barriers to Personal Change: Time Barriers

Time can be one of the hardest Barriers to Personal Change to overcome on several levels. Lack of time management, having our time taken up by other commitments or if the goal is only achievable in the distant future can all act as barriers to personal change. Lets look at each of these.

Is lack of time management one of your barriers to personal change? Do you find at the end of the day that you have not accomplished what you set out to do? Distractions in life are constant. The dog is barking, the kids are yelling, the television is blaring. Yet, despite those distractions, we manage to make and meet appointments with the doctor or dentist, attend a meeting or go to a friends party. Why? Because we set the time aside to do so. Its time to pencil yourself in and set aside the time to work on your goals.

Another of the time barriers to personal change is filling our available time up with doing what others want. After all, it is better to give than receive, right? So where are you giving your time?

We all agree that helping others out is important. However, when doing so is consuming all of your time, it leaves you unable to work on your own goals. Take a long hard look at the commitments youve made and learn to selectively say no. Depending on the commitment, it may take a bit of time to make a graceful exit, but as long as you dont replace it with another once you have freed yourself, you will eventually eliminate it as one of your time barriers to personal change.

Having to wait a long period of time to work on your goals is one of the harder barriers to personal change, often resulting in people giving up on their goals. Instead of telling yourself that you will never reach that point, go back to your step-by-step plan. Do you need to take a class, make room in your budget, or save? Maybe you are a single parent and you need to wait for the children to get older or you need to find childcare you can trust and afford. Your time line will of necessity be longer. But that does not stop you from taking steps along the way to enable you to reach your goal when the time is right.

Identifying the time barriers to personal change in your life is the first step to adjusting your life to include time to reach your goals.

Warmest regards,

SherryD