This one sounds like a no-brainer, but it isn’t. Not for me anyway. I always seem to struggle to find enough time to do my drawing, even though I feel that it’s very important to me. If I had my way and didn’t care about anyone else, I’d do it all day every day, but things always seem to crop up that takes me away from drawing. I always do these other things like I have no choice and so get annoyed that I can’t seem to put aside enough time to do my drawing. But really I have got a choice, and I’m choosing to do those other things, even though I feel like my drawing is more important. How successful we are all comes down to what we rank as being most important in our lives. We only have a finite amount of time to do things and most of us have many more things that we need and want to do than we will ever be able to accomplish. So what we chose to do each day is a measure of what we rank as most important in our lives. This may not necessarily be a conscious choice. For example, a man may consciously rank his family as most important to him, but then spend the majority of evenings and weekends working rather than spending time with his family. Why? He may be unconsciously placing more importance on ‘providing’ for his family, for example, because he grew up in a very poor family. Or maybe, as a boy, he gained acceptance from his parents by his achievements so he unconsciously places great importance in striving for success in his career because it gives him self-esteem. The point is, we may be doing things every day that we feel we have no choice in, and that we’d rather be doing something else, but really we have chosen to do these things every day because we (consciously or unconsciously) place a great deal of importance on them.
The most successful people probably rank their work as the most important thing in their life (consciously or unconsciously). It has to be the most important thing to dedicate that amount of time and energy to it. I read a fascinating book called ‘Evil Plans: escape the rat race and start doing something you love’ by Hugh MacLeod. He basically says, to be successful at doing something you love you need to spend every waking moment doing it. He asks Chris Anderson, who at the time was Editor in chief of the magazine Wired, about how he manages to juggle all his commitments (including five young kids, two start-up companies, writing books, speaking gigs, etc.) This was his answer:
“Obviously, balance is a distant goal. In the meantime, I delegate; work all the time; hardly sleep; totally ignore politics, sports, and pop culture; neglect my family too much; and probably don’t do any of my jobs as well as I could. But these are exciting days, and if ever there was a time to be overextended, this is it.”
Blatantly, he puts his work before anything else. If you have ever seen the tv show “Secret Millionaire”, many of the millionaires on that programme, after gaining some perspective on their lives by spending time helping disadvantaged people, get upset when they realise that they haven’t spent enough time with their own family because they have been too busy working and vow to spend more time with them. Many successful people are divorced because they put their work before their relationship and family. Now, I’m not saying that they’re wrong. That is their own choice. It might not even be a conscious choice, but it’s still a choice. Personally I couldn’t do that. I’ve realised that I place a great amount of importance in the people in my life. And although I could spend all my evenings and weekends doing my drawing and writing my blog, I choose not to because I want to spend time with my husband, friends and family.
However, I also place too much importance on what people think of me, and feeling the need to do the ‘right thing’. That means that sometimes I put other people’s needs before mine. So I feel like I need to help someone out rather than do my drawing because otherwise they’ll think I’m selfish. Or I’ll arrange to see someone during the day as it is more convenient for them rather than see them in the evening when it’s better for me. I need to work on this because I quite often find myself doing these things because I feel I have to rather than because I want to, and end up resenting the fact that I’m not spending enough time drawing. I need to be courageous enough to think about my needs in relation to other peoples and feel as though I’m doing what’s right for me, aswell as what is right for others.
I read that quote from Chris Anderson to my husband who has his own human resources business, and he said “That doesn’t sound like an enjoyable life. It sounds stressful to me.” I agree. I also place a great deal of importance on my health. So finding time to relax, eat healthily, exercise and get enough sleep is another thing that takes priority. I find that this works for me as feeling tired, hungover, lethargic, sluggish and on the brink of death doesn’t fill me with creative inspiration.
Does this mean I won’t be successful? Well, I’m certainly never going to be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. But the question is, can I create a living doing something I enjoy and still have time to focus on other important areas of my life? I need to work out a ratio of time that I want to spend on each important thing in my life, so I can find a balance that I’m happy with.
The Success Experiment 