Values conflicts are like quicksand sometimes. They throw your best-laid plans out of whack and keep you spinning your tires. Yet they aren’t always obvious or easy to spot.
Sometimes you need to backtrack, starting with a behavior and following its trail back to its root.
Here’s how it can work – and what a mystery it can all seem at first!
Let’s say you’ve got a plan for your day, but special pastimes beckon to you invitingly. As you proceed through the hours, it’s as if your day has a slow leak. Before you know it, night has fallen. What happened to your time?
It got caught in a time trap.
Time traps can almost feel like another dimension – and they can be extremely frustrating. This is especially true when you’ve resolved, over and over, to “just say no” to certain activities, but still keep saying, “yes” when push comes to shove!
Values Conflicts and Time Traps – a Fresh Approach
What if you think of these pesky time traps as clues to follow? Then, you could resolve the underlying issues, liberate power that’s been held hostage to indecision, and free up your time to move forward!
The clues your time traps hold will nearly always lead you to hidden values conflicts. Why?
Well, let’s start by rethinking what a time trap represents. It’s really a paradox. Even though it punctures your possibilities, each time trap is a deliberate choice you make that serves a specific function in your life.
You choose it, and yet, it works against you. How can this be?
Dig just a little bit deeper and you will find that your time trap reflects a battle between conflicting values you hold.
For example, let’s say you spend an extra hour surfing the net for bargains. This means you’ve already used the time that you set aside for starting that project you looked forward to.
Your choice to stay online may manifest one of your values conflicts – no doubt a major one. But once you recognize and name a point of conflict, you take a giant step toward getting yourself unstuck.
The more you explore the in’s and out’s of your time traps, the clearer you’ll become about where you want to go – and how to get there!
Values Conflicts-Untangle the Tangles and Feel Your Power!
Any time you hold opposing values that jostle one another for top billing, time choices get tangled.
How can you remain totally loyal to your plans, if you shift and slide from one set of priorities to another? When you can’t decide whether to go right or go left, sometimes, you just stay stuck in one place. And your time traps hold you there.
So don’t dig yourself deeper into a rut by spinning your tires or judging yourself. Instead, see this time trap as something to investigate. As your self-understanding grows, you will stabilize your hierarchy of priorities and develop decisiveness.
Then, you will experience more inner harmony and enjoy greater effectiveness, too. You have the power in your hands, whenever you are ready to take it!
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When time flows out of my hands I make a to do list in the morning that I have to tick – it always works for me to get even those things done that I tend to postpone and also have spare time left to enjoy 🙂
Hi Erzsebet – Thanks for stopping by. I agree – to-do lists are wonderful tools for keeping yourself moving and getting things done!
This is so true. I can be a champion at wasting time when trapped, while when I’m in control I can amaze myself at my productivity. Time to explore deeper.
Hi RobertZ – I am a big believer in exploring deeper. Here’s to your journey of discovery!