There are two things in this world that you can never get back once they are lost, and this is time and your life. One thing that separates highly successful people from those who are not successful is their ability to master their time. While it has often been said that 20% of the population controls 80% of the wealth, the wealthy and powerful often spend 80% of their time doing things that allow them to control 80% of the wealth. However, this phenomenon isn't simply limited to the world of finance.
In the fields of medicine, science, and sports, the most successful people in history always devoted the majority of their time doing things which allowed them to become great. While most of us marvel at the things these great individuals produce, looking at the end result of their actions, we often fail to consider the amount of time and energy that they put into mastering their trade. These successful individuals recognize and take advantage of the most important commodity they have available in their disposal............their time.
Over the years, I've spent a great deal of time studying both successful and unsuccessful people, and one thing that I've found is that the two sides are completely different when it comes to the ways in which they value and manage their time. Successful people, upon discovering what it is they want most out of life, spend the majority of their time reaching for this goal.
These individuals guard their time in the same manner that banks guard their vaults, and they allow nothing to interfere with their plans. If they wish to become lawyers, they spend much of their time working towards that end. If they wish to become engineers, they spend 80% of their time doing things which will allow them to work in this field. If they wish to make it into the NBA, they spend 80% of their time working towards this goal. The point is that successful people spend the majority of their time doing things which will allow them to become successful.
These people recognize the fact that they only have so much time, and because time can never be obtained again once it is gone, they choose to use their time carefully. Most humans don't value their time until they're in a situation where they know how much time they have left to live, such as a person on death row, or a person who is suffering from a terminal illness. Successful people, on the other hand, instinctively learn to value their time, and use it in the most important manner possible. This is why they're able to achieve feats that seem super human to most people, since they have successfully mastered their time.
To become a highly successful freelancer, one who amasses six or even seven figures, you must become a master of your time. You must learn to see your time as your most valuable commodity in the universe, it is more important than all the gold in the world, its level of importance is equal to that of your health. This also means that you must constantly be on the look out for “time wasters,” people or things which seek to waste your time. Remember, while your time is and should be the most valuable thing in the world to you, it means less than nothing to everyone else, and people will think nothing of wasting it.
This includes, but is not limited to, friends and family members. Though they may love you, and may in all likelihood want the best for you, there are often times when they may inadvertently attempt to waste your time. A master of time management is quickly able to recognize situations where their time is at risk of being wasted, and they will protect their time from being wasted at all costs. You will often be surprised at how much you can accomplish when you're able to manage your time in the proper manner.
On the other hand, unsuccessful people are just the opposite. They often don't value their time, and in fact, it is often the thing which is least valuable to them. You've probably seen these types before in your own personal life. These are the type of people who spend more time hanging out with friends and doing other things of this nature as opposed to working towards their goals, which in most cases they don't have, since they never take the time to formulate goals. These people also allow life to push them around, they allow both people and things to break their concentration, take them away from their work, and frustrate them. This type of mindset must be avoided at all costs.