Time Perspective:
Knowing your relationship to the past, present and future provides insights into how your conscious mind is oriented in time. This part of my coaching model is based on the exhaustive research on the psychology of time conducted by Dr. Zimbardo of Stanford University. His seminal work on time is presented in detail in the book Time Paradox. I recommend you read it if you want a more indepth look. For our purposes the meaning and impact of time psychology is deftly inserted in the framework of how we coach you.
We all have various mental biases around time that shape our daily living and subsequently our entire way of being. Work, school, family, church etc structure our daily life into orderly predictable units. Being out of work or out of school or without an external structure of some kind demands an internal one if we are to navigate through each day in a meaningful way.
We all divide the continuous flow of our experiences into time frames (past, present, future) that help to give order, coherence, and meaning to events.
It is your time perspective that plays a fundamental role in the way you live.
Your time perspective consist of your conscious and unconscious relationship to past, present and future. It’s about where your attention goes. Energy flows where consciousness goes. If you spend most of your time mired in the past it usually means your energy and attention are stuck there as well. There is an optimal relationship to past, present and future whichs empowers your best life now.
Take a look at the chart below.
How you spend today is strongly influenced by your relationship to your past and your vision of your future. All your decisions are geared toward an outcome in the future. Yet your current situation and memories have a lot of influence on what consequences you anticipate from your decisions.
Your time perspective is a powerful influence on thoughts, feelings and actions. Your orientation around past, present and future matters. Time matters. My intent is to help you develop a healthy and balanced time perspective that allows you to flexibly shift between past, present and future to support you in making optimal decisions.
Consider this observation: “Life is about making decisions.” Both the quality and consequences of your decisions will affect you and your stakeholders (all those folks who are affected by your choices and decisions including spouses, children, friends, business associates, etc.) perhaps for a lifetime. Therefore it’s essential that your decision making be made more conscious and that your time biases be exposed and understood.