Homo sapiens are the only species on the planet with the capacity to ask questions like: “Who am I and what matters to me?” As such, it seems almost a spiritual mandate that we not only ask them, but seek to answer them also. Since our actions are so loud, that no one actually hears us speak it makes sense that we start with observing our daily activities to see how we spend our most valuable asset: Time.
“We are what we repeatedly do” (Aristotle, or Google for more on the origin of this phrase) and as it goes “Excellence therefore, is not an act but a habit.” I find the subject of habits to be fascinating and books like Atomic Habits by James Clear have literally changed my life.
If we are what we repeatedly do, then observing the ways in which we spend our currency of time is a great place to start when seeking answers to identity questions. Ultimately, we want our actions to consistently reflect our values, but what if our values are not clear even to us?
One pragmatic exercise is to track our activity for a day, week or longer. Keep a time journal and literally enter every activity that is engaged over a specified period. Tracking behavior through realtime journaling is a powerful way to illuminate any habit (including financial spending, nutrition, even social media usage). Words on paper (or tablet) are literally “black and white” unlike so much of our lives.
Once the data set has been collected, no judgment on it by the way, we look at it in aggregate. We want to be objective, not subjective, when we see patterns emerge. Some will be familiar but some may be surprising.
We take that data set and recognize that there are really only a handful of categories that are revealed. They may be somewhat idiosyncratic but from a high level view they tend to be comprised of family, health, economics, spirituality, social and community. Or as Brian Johnson would say “Energy, Work & Love.”
Once categories emerge, the next step is to quantify how much of our time resource is spent on each. There are many granular ways of doing this, but regardless of the method, identifying where our time is spent gets us closer to the answer of “Who am I, what matters to me?”
If the majority of time for example is spent on daily activities of supporting family (making sure everyone has what they need to thrive and meeting basic needs) then the first answer to the question is “I highly value my family.” If large pockets of time are spent in a work setting, an answer might be “My work is very important to me.” If a ‘gym rat’ the value may be “It is important that I am physically strong and healthy.” If time blocks are mostly spent watching TV or engaging in social media, the answer might be “I value entertainment over most things.”
The critical key in this exercise is to first collect the data as an unbiased researcher. Then, during analyses the real magic happens. By that I mean, we realize that we may think or say we value one thing, while our actions reveal that when it comes to spending our time there is a disconnect between our “proclaimed values” and our actual behaviors. This cognitive dissonance can contribute to undesired psychological experiences such as anxiety, depression and regret.
Referring back to the last couple of blog posts, if we want to answer yes and no questions with integrity, we first need to know for ourselves, clearly, indisputably, and absolutely. One effective way to do that is to measure actual choices, against who we take ourselves to be, and see if they are in alignment.