It is February 2024 already, and The Body Camp team has just returned from our annual, highly-successful 4-week pop-up in Morocco. Sixty guests arrived and before they knew it, they were gone. “Time flies when you’re having fun” some say!
While at camp in Morocco, we helped guests to work on themselves to maximise their potential. One of the techniques we used involved writing down daily new behaviours, and completing a letter to themselves to open in the future as a powerful visualisation tool. How guests spent their time daily in Morocco was the key to getting the most out of their time there, and also reflecting on how they normally spend their time in everyday life and how they can use this more productively. How we use time is crucial. There are 24 hours in a day, so we all have plenty of minutes (1440 a day); however, most of us make excuses and claim to not have enough time!
IT’S HOW WE SPEND IT THAT COUNTS!
Key questions?
1. What would happen if you cut down your social media and phone use to only 20 minutes a day? Social media is designed to be addictive, but you have the power to spend your time being addicted or to choose a healthier behaviour. Imagine what you can do with that free time!
2. How can we think more positively? Another unhealthy waste of time is ‘over-thinking’. Rumination over poor choices and negative self-talk are not healthy ways to spend your time. Learning to re-phrase things in a positive way will, over time, encourage you to speak more kindly to yourself and to get more fulfilment from each day.
3. How much time during the day are you sitting down and not moving?
Here are 5 areas which need your time in 2024…
1. Body Health – this requires 20 minutes minimum a day and can include the following: walking, yoga, stretching, Pilates, gym circuits, weights, sports. Anything that moves your body daily breeds confidence, gives you energy and increases longevity. After the age of 40, this becomes your MOST IMPORTANT way of spending time daily.
2. Brain Health – meditation, breathwork, being in nature, closing your eyes for 5 mins a day and just following your breath, reading, puzzles, drinking water and eating healthy foods (such as the plant-based nutrition found at The Body Camp). The most important way to spend time for brain health is to ensure eight hours of sleep per day. All of these fantastic ways to spend your precious time daily in 2024 enable you to focus, stay sharp and improve your memory. Some of these activities require just 5-10 minutes a day.
3. Connection and love – how much time do you spend having good conversations with other people and even yourself? Do you spend time cultivating new and existing relationships? Are you spending time connecting with your loved ones and family or are you again finding ways to disconnect by using TV and mobile devices? What would happen if you spent 5-10 minutes a day talking at the table with the family about how you dealt with the problems of the day or how grateful you all are for having each other?
4. Improving yourself – how much time do you spend daily reading, learning and becoming a better person for yourself and for others? Spending 5-10 minutes a day focusing on a new subject, will expand the mind, make you a better person and will enable you to have better conversations and become the most interesting person in the room.
5. Listening to your own inner wisdom – what if you spent 5-10 minutes a day writing down things that pop into your mind, journaling or using a mood diary? All of these thoughts and feelings are coming from somewhere inside of you. Spending important, focused time listening to your “inner technology” (your intuition and gut instinct) will enable you to learn about yourself and begin to get clarity on what is true and not true for you.
How you spend your time is crucial.
Life is flying by…
Begin today with one of the 5 areas above and get laser-focused on how you spend your time!
Over and out.
Rick Parcell
The Body Camp