Do you ever sit and wonder where all of your “free-time” during the day went? You have this wonderful schedule that you intend to stick to. At the beginning of your day, you start with your plans. You are going to spend some time doing what you want or love to do and then before you know it, it’s time for bed, or to start a new day. Where does the time go? What happened to your moment alone? Allow me to let you in on a little secret…Your time was HI-JACKED! It happens to the best of us and it’s because we, yes… we, blame ourselves. We don’t set boundaries that would allow us to spend that much needed time doing what we set out to do.

I’ll give you an example. Last week I had every intention of scheduling a massage. I put it on my to-do list, marked the due date for me to have the massage scheduled by and I started looking around for deals and recommendations. By the way I seriously need a massage so if any of you have suggestions, leave them in the comments. Getting back to how my time got hi-jacked. As I set out to explore the world of massages my phone rang, it was a family member, I won’t name names because well you know people get offended and all. I answered and immediately got the question “What are you doing?” Now for the most part this is an inquisitive question that is looking for a genuine answer but you know how we all have those family members or friends who are always calling to ask us to do something? This was one of those times. I immediately answered working. It wasn’t a lie I was working on relaxing. Then comes the sob story of how they don’t have reliable help, how nobody understands their plight and blah, blah, blah. I listened and knew the follow up would be a request for help. My heart strings were tugged and what should have been maybe an hour worth of help turned into an all-day event. I found that once I helped to resolve one issue another miraculously appeared. This was the whole day and by the time I got home my eyes were too heavy to even look at someone else get a massage, or let alone research one for myself. And there you have it, my time was hi-jacked and I allowed it.

So often we try to blame others for how they take up our time, when actually, we control how we designate our time. NO! Is a complete sentence that requires no explanation. I’m telling you and myself to use it and use it often! Especially when you have plans to take care of you. Of course we want to help the family and you can designate time to do that, but your health and well-being are important too so don’t forget to make you a priority.

Have you had your time hi-jacked? Tell me about it, maybe I can help you form a plan to take your time back.