I Have So Much Time. Here’s Why You Don’t.

Every January I get to sit with people who are full of hope. They come in wanting a fresh start. They want to heal. They want to feel better in their bodies. They want more peace, more energy, more joy, a brighter year. And almost always, their New Year’s goals sound the same. I want to lose weight. I want to heal. I want to read more. I want to meditate. I want to finally take care of myself.

All beautiful things. Truly.

And every single one of those goals quietly asks for the same currency. Time.

Somewhere in already packed days, they need to find another twenty minutes, or another hour, or time away from their family, or time alone, or time to be disciplined, or time to be consistent. The underlying belief is subtle but powerful. If I add this one thing to my life and do it well enough, I’ll be happier on the other side.

If this method has worked for you, I genuinely celebrate that. If you have set goals like this and loved the process and the outcome, congratulations. I mean that. I, however, am roughly zero for thirty four on New Year’s resolutions.

For a long time I thought the answer was better goals. Better frameworks. Better systems. I thought about writing about productivity books, about setting more realistic expectations, about SMART goals and reward structures and discipline. But recently, in a coaching session, something landed so cleanly it stopped me mid-sentence.

The problem was never how I was setting goals.
The problem was that my goals were asking me to add when what I needed was to subtract.

People tell me all the time that I have so much time. They say it with disbelief, like it must be a trick or a lie. I am a full-time mom who cooks and cleans and shows up deeply for my child, not just raising him but teaching him emotional intelligence, regulation, curiosity, and compassion. I show up for my marriage with intention and love. I manage a household, the invisible labor, the calendars, the logistics, the remembering.

I also work full-time. And by full-time I mean I help run a family catering company that regularly asks for seventy hours a week. I run this business where I see clients, teach classes, and hold space for people doing deep inner work. I support my husband in yet another business. I work out five days a week. I sleep like a baby. I love to nap daily. I watch movies. I read constantly. I am currently earning a doctorate. I meditate for hours. And still, I feel like I have time. Abundant time.

When I say that, it rattles people because the one thing we collectively agree on is that there is never enough time. I think that is one of the biggest lies we tell each other.

There is so much time. Time is abundant.

Einstein said that time is a stubbornly persistent illusion, and I think he was right. Time does not exist in hours and minutes the way we try to control it. Time exists in moments, in awareness, in presence. There is a line from the movie Collateral Beauty that I love. “If love is creation and death is destruction, time is just the terrain in between.” There is so much terrain.

We did not lose time because we were not productive enough. We lost it because we filled it with things that were not our true focus, not our deepest yes.

I work in hospitality, and I want to be very clear about this. I have never met more capable, more driven, more heart-led humans than the people who work in this industry. Planners, florists, chefs, caterers, designers. We do not do meaningless work. There is romance in what we create. There is artistry, intention, and a true belief that when we host people well, we are not throwing parties, we are changing lives. We mark moments. We witness love. We build memory and meaning. This work matters deeply.

And still, even here, no one feels like there is enough time.

Not because the work lacks heart. Not because the work lacks purpose. But because even meaningful work can become relentless when every minute is filled, every space occupied, every breath tasked. Productivity becomes a mask. Dopamine becomes a distraction from pain. Motion becomes a way to avoid stillness. Even beautiful creation can crowd out presence if we never stop long enough to feel it. There’s a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean where someone says the world is getting smaller, and Jack Sparrow replies, “The world’s the same. There’s just less in it.”

So when someone tells me they do not have time, I gently disagree. You have so much time. It is a gift. You have more of it than you know what to do with. The issue is not time itself. It is what you are filling it with and what you are using it to avoid.

If you are filling your days with checking boxes in hopes that one day you will finally feel like enough, no amount of efficiency will ever deliver that feeling.

That lie could not be further from the truth.

You are already enough.

Who you are exists outside productivity, outside achievement, outside your to-do list. Your worth stands outside space and time entirely. So if you find yourself this New Year setting resolutions that ask you to add more, pause. Try something radical. Subtract.

Cut the belief that you are stupid and would be powerful if you were smarter or more well-read.
Cut the belief that if you were thinner you would be more wanted and therefore more loved.
Cut the belief that you are broken and need fixing.

And notice how much time suddenly appears.

If you feel inspired reading this and also completely unsure how to live it, you are not failing. That confusion is part of waking up.

Here is where you start. Take three deep breaths. Feel the air move through your nose and throat and lungs. Notice the temperature of it. Feel your body where it meets the floor or the chair. Notice the sounds around you, the way your clothes rest against your skin. Slow down enough to be here.

That took maybe thirty seconds. Notice how calm you feel. Notice how long that moment felt. That is where the time has been hiding.

How many times a day can you return to this moment? How often can your mind, body, and soul all be in the same place at the same time?

This is the key.

One of my favorite practices embodies this completely because it requires you to add nothing to your life. You already do it. Every morning and every night when you brush your teeth, switch hands. Use your non-dominant hand. Look at yourself in the mirror. Feel the bristles on your gums. Feel gratitude for every tooth and all they have allowed you to eat, speak, kiss, laugh, and experience.

Then look at the woman staring back at you. She has shown up for you every single day, especially the days you thought you could not keep going. Every version of you sacrificed so that you could be here now.

Switching hands creates a new neurological pathway. It forces presence. It brings you back to now. Paired with gratitude, it rewires more than your brain. It gives you your time back.

It isn’t about doing less or doing more. It’s about how you do what you’re already doing. When your days are filled with awe and wonder, when each moment and each action is met with presence instead of rush, something shifts. The same tasks take on new texture. Time stretches. Life softens. And without changing your schedule at all, your relationship with time begins to transform. This is how you stop trying to find more time.
You remember that it has been here all along.