The deep, down, dark truth of why I signed up for Time Genius was because I was starting to lose hope that my life could be any better than it was. I was beginning to accept that I would always be overwhelmed, rushing out the door five minutes late, hair barely dry, wrangling the kids into the car, frazzled, and in a constant state of overwhelm.
Every morning I woke up with a jolt at 3am and again at 6am with racing thoughts of everything I needed to, should have, or wanted to do regarding my businesses and I would feel cortisol shoot into my system — taking a toll and changing the outlook on my entire day. I felt behind the moment I woke up.
I wondered why I kept keeping on when no matter if I worked all of my waking hours (and collapsed into bed to power sleep) that I wasn’t moving any closer to my goals.
When my kids said, “Mommy, you can bring your work to the park,” or, “Mommy, you can bring your work to my bedroom so I can get dressed,” that shook me up. My life had gotten so far off the rails with constant work, that I had become a poor role model for my kids. I remember the moment I asked the universe for help: “I want to learn how to take care of myself like I take care of others.” And then about a week and a half later I watched Marie’s video about Time Genius, and I signed up before the hour was up.
Time Genius came into my life right at my breaking point, and it changed my life.
My day to day changes start at 3am - I’m not waking up with a stress-inducing litany of thoughts about the businesses! I’m sleeping at 3am! At 5:30 I wake up and start my morning routine of tea, yoga, journaling, and meditation then on to visualizing my success plan, and starting in on my first focus block. I feel like I’m at a spa (I know that sounds ridiculous) every morning because of the soul-restoring sense of self-care and self-prioritization with which I start my day.
My two kids (Alden, 8, and Sophia, 6) are the people, besides my husband and myself, who benefit the most. They aren’t saying to bring my work with me any more. We have been playing in the evening because I’m not Zombie Mom by 6 pm. The pure delight on my daughter’s face at playing with me in the evening is all the reinforcement I need to know that I am never going back to the land of Time Stress.
My husband looks at me with profound relief. I watched him as he was telling a friend about the changes he has noticed in me (and Mike isn’t an emotional man) and he struggled for words to capture the change he has seen. As I watched him, underneath the words I saw that what he was expressing was wonder, celebration, and happiness that I had emerged from under a self-imposed boulder of over-working. The me that he fell in love with — the girl who would hop on a four wheeler on this Alaskan island and go fishing or camping, the girl who surfed her kayak in big swells, the goofy girl who could always crack him up, and the girl who used to experiment with all sorts of creative work in his print studio he owned when we were dating — she was back. I saw myself through his energy and it makes me tear up. Not because I’m sad that I had been lost, but that I am so grateful for Time Genius that I was able to find my way through decades of overwork and blossom again.
The holistic approach to moving out of Time Stress to Time Genius sets this program apart from all the other books I have read trying desperately to find a solution to my time stress.
I took the time to implement changes as I went through each Fun Sheet. I didn’t move on until I had taken action and organized my phone, made changes in my routine, and challenged my old beliefs.
For the rest of my life, I want to carry with me these tools from Time Genius so that when hard things come up, I know that I have a toolbox to help me navigate life with grace. There is life before Time Genius and a beautiful, peaceful, and empowering life after.
There aren’t words to adequately capture how much you have changed my life. How you have given me back my life. I know that Time Genius has altered the course of our family story. My kids will not inherit the culture of overworking that has been handed down to me. You not only improved my life, you have improved life for my husband and for my kids. I am more grateful than you know.