Here I am, trying to find a way to stop wasting my life away. I have been diagnosed as clinically depressed for 7 years now. I am still fighting my battle to get my life back. After spending most of the past 3 years of my life in bed, I have finally decided to take my life back into my own hands. To do this, I need to stop wasting my time in bed. 

First off- time is not just numbers on a clock. Time is the most important part of life. Without time we would be nothing. Here in a flash and then gone the next, as if we didn’t even exist. I am only 23 years old, and instead of going out and living my life with the time I have, I prefer to stay in bed and quite literally sleep my life away. I have made the decision that I want to live, and I damn well deserve to live too! I’m taking away so much from myself by not living my life.

I think that is a good first step to stop wasting time. Make the life-changing decision that you are done just surviving and getting by.  You want to start living now! Realize you deserve to live the life you want. The second step is to realize what it is you want to get out of life. Sit down and write down who you want to be in 6 months and who you want to be in 5 years. Here is my example: I want a family of my own, with a man I love, in a beautiful house and I want to have a job I am happy at and that pays the bills. That is my 5-year goal. Now, do you think that by me lying in bed all the time, never doing anything, I’m going to reach that goal? HELL NO! I wouldn’t even get close! So once you have your 6-month goals and your 5-year goals, now you have to think of how you are going to reach those goals. 

So the third step would be to do something every day, that takes you one step closer to where you want to be. Even if today it’s just getting out of bed and reading a book that can help. Heck, you could even stay in bed as long as you read that book. Do some research of places you’d like to live in or travel to one day. Take a step forward every day until you reach your goal. Next is figuring out what is making you waste time. Are you sleeping all day? Are you on Facebook mindlessly scrolling for hours? Playing some games on your phone for 30 minutes? Watching tv when there’s no good series on? I’m not going to tell you to give any of these up, because they do help with downtime. However, we need to lessen the time these distractions use, to make the time to take those important steps for ourselves. We need to have more time focusing on the steps to get closer to our goal or to just have time to meditate and relax. Now we know what we’re wasting our time on, the next step is to spend less time doing that. We need to replace that time we would be wasting on sleep, games, or mindlessly scrolling, to do a small thing to get one step closer to our goal and the person we want to be. 

I know it is a lot easier said than done, but we all need to realize that we’re not just getting downtime, we’re doing too much downtime and ignoring the fact that our lives are going right past us. 5 or 10 minutes a day just to get closer to your goal is much better than 5 more minutes of sleep, or 5 more minutes on Facebook. It may not seem like it’s better now, because no one likes change. It will take a while, so we need to be patient with ourselves but whenever we think, “ag I’d rather sleep, or play on the PlayStation, or check Facebook.” We need to quickly interrupt that thought with the fact that we want to live and not waste time anymore. We need to keep reminding ourselves why we can no longer afford to waste time. Life goes by so quickly, we’ll blink and be on our deathbeds. Wishing we did more of what we wanted and reach our goals. Wasted time is not something you’d enjoy reminiscing about before death. So, let’s stop wasting time now. 

The next step is to keep reminding ourselves why we are giving up our distractions. Remind ourselves that we deserve to live our lives and not just survive. When you have a really busy day and can’t fit anything in, don’t beat yourself up about it. Not every day will be the same. Just make sure the next day you start over and do that small thing. The next step is to start every day as a new day. Did you feel a bit crappy for not doing your little step closer to your goal yesterday? So, what? Today is a new day, fit it in today. Get up 5 minutes earlier if you have to. Just stick at it and in a few days, you will feel so much more accomplished and you would have wasted less time than last week. Next step is to be proud of how far you’ve come.

Week by week think about how much closer you are to your goal now and think of where you’d be if you didn’t stop wasting time. Acknowledge your progress and be proud of yourself! Remember you are amazing and deserve to live the way you want. 

Step 1: 

Decide enough is enough and make the choice to start living.

Step 2: 

Write down where you want to be in 6 months and in 5 years.

Step 3: 

Do little things every day that takes you closer to reaching your goal.

Step 4: 

Figure out your time wasters.

Step 5: 

Spend more time on your daily steps than on your time wasters.

Step 6: 

Keep reminding yourself why wasting time is not an option.

Step 7: 

Remember every day is a new beginning. Stick to your steps.

Step 8: 

Acknowledge your progress weekly and be proud of yourself!!

Remember you are a rockstar, you can do this! Now go forth and waste no more time!