Time, Space & Matter

As a coach when you interact with your clients, you can often see that they are almost always looking for quick results and growth. Whether they say it or not, this thought process usually comes from a place of feedback, thus leading to an internal urgency – looking for a ‘quick correction’ or a ‘fast change’. 

Being a coach however, it is important to help your clients not get caught up in looking for quick wins and instead help them sustain their leadership journey in the long run. A marathon and not a sprint, as they say. 

And so, when I thought about it, I realised, in the larger scheme of things, there are actually three pillars upholding leadership development. Let me take you through them one by one. 

Time

I want you to do something. Go on Google image search and type the word ‘time’. What do you get? 

Unless there’s a current wave of controversy going around the word ‘time’ at the time you read this article (pun intended), in all probability you will get the mighty clock as a result. Did you? Assuming that you did, what do you think that tells us?  

When I saw the images of various clocks showing up, to me it seems that our perception of time has taken the shape of a clock. Thus, we measure time in terms of hours or days usually. Which essentially means that in human experience everything we do is measured in a ‘day’; thus, time is compressed to suit our experience of life - in a cyclical manner. 

In a study conducted by Han Hershfield, a psychologist at UCLA Anderson School of Management, he found that people’s brains were most active when thinking about their current selves than their future selves, which goes to show that humans are not quite as efficient in thinking about long-term impact of things. 

Another manner in which time is looked at in human experience is linear in nature. For example, learning from the past to apply into the future. 

So far, we’ve seen that our association with time is either 

A) Cyclical – seconds, hours, days, months, etc. 

B) Linear - first x happened, then y happened 

Julia Cameron in her book ‘The Artist’s Way’ explores at a third way of looking at time – as a spiral. It means that in your life span you will circle through some of the same issues over and over again at different stages of life - which means that there is no such thing as being ‘done’ and that frustrations and rewards exist at all levels on the path. 

So, the idea is to find the trail, establish your footing and then begin the climb. 

Now when you think of time as a spiral, don’t take time as a unit by itself and instead combine it with the unit of development. So, when you look at time as a spiral you have two choices at each point of life: 

Option #1: You can choose to make a better decision and grow into a more mature version of yourself (shifting the spiral ‘upwards’) 

Or 

Option #2: You can make a worse decision and regress (shifting the spiral ‘downwards’) 

In order to use look at time to achieve more long-term goals, James Clear says most people need more consistency than intensity. 

So, what does Consistency > Intensity look like? 

If intensity is running a marathon one day, then consistency means not missing a workout for 2 years. If intensity means joining an intensive silent meditation retreat, then consistency is taking out small chunks to observe silence each day, every single day. 

What I want you to do is to just reflect on your relationship with time in context of your personal development. Take the time out to look at something that you’re very good at today and ask yourself how long it took you to get there. 

Space 

The second pillar for the development of effective leadership is Space. Now generally how we end up looking at space is by first bringing in that which we need into our lives and then figuring out ways to fit them into our schedule. But the way you would benefit would be to actually first create the space in order for things to make an appearance into your life. This sows the seed of value and intention of fully appreciating and utilizing for that object (physical or non-physical) even before you introduce it into your life, thus increasing chances of you retaining it in the long run.  

Spaces can exist in multiple ways. Let’s explore them further: 

Physical – in order to be physically fit and healthy, start by creating space every evening at a particular time for a minimum duration to get some physical workout. 

Mental – similar to physical fitness, in order to be mentally fit, create space by clearing out at least 30 minutes of your day or a couple of hours a week to learn something new or acquire a skill pertaining to your line of work or your personal growth. 

Emotional – to thrive in the emotional space, design your day in such a way that the entire family spends sometime together discussing the happenings in each other’s lives and assisting them wherever you can. 

Psychological – frequent check-ins for the regular upkeep of a healthy psychological state is something that is often overlooked, but ought to be part of each individual’s life. Check yourself to ensure you are not over-burdening yourself by realistically setting up goals and taking frequent time offs to be able to come back fresh to work. 

Spiritual – perhaps the most overlooked of all, spiritual upkeep is often ignored and side-lined until the later parts of one’s life. Most of us are stuck in juggling the other four for the most part. But if you take time out for your spiritual maintenance, you will often find that the other four areas of life become quite friction-less, if not completely friction-free. So, set up about 15 minutes a day (to begin with) for meditation every morning, before you get caught up in the whirlwind of work. Stick to it for a minimum of 6 weeks without fail before making up your mind whether it’s any good or not.  

Before you even start creating space for that all the above-mentioned aspects, do a self-audit to see what kind of spaces you’ve created for yourself until now. Check to see what’s working and where you’re lacking and then go about creating spaces that you know you can fit into your life without much friction to ensure a bigger chance of success.  

Matter 

That which comes into your space (which you created above) is matter.  

Marshall Goldsmith in his book “Triggers: Creating Behaviours that Lasts – Becoming the Person You Want to Be” speaks about what he calls the ‘Wheel of Change’ which he uses to help his clients figure out what to change and where to put their effort.  

• Creating represents the positive elements that we want to create in our future. 
• Eliminating represents the negative elements that we want to eliminate in the future. 
• Preserving represents the positive elements that we want to keep in the future. 
• Accepting represents the negative elements that we need to accept in the future. 

In all likelihood, if you look at the way you operate, you would find that you are usually always stuck in the ‘creating’ and ‘eliminating’ phase. It’s true for most people. We’re constantly either looking to add new matter into our lives or are in the process of self-invention (creating) or we’re finding ways to get rid of that which doesn’t serve us or are harmful to us (eliminating). 

The preservation aspect is what we do a poor job of usually. Marshall Goldsmith puts it really well when he says “Preserving sounds passive and mundane, but it’s a real choice. It requires soul-searching to figure out what serves us well, and discipline to refrain from abandoning it for something new and shiny and not necessarily better. We don’t practice preserving enough.”  

Preserving is like tending to the garden; though it doesn’t sound as exciting, it is something we should create more space for in order to maintain and improve upon that which we already have. 

The fourth and final aspect of the Wheel of Change is accepting – that which is often most neglected out of the four and looked at with a certain amount of disdain. Why? Because for many it feels like admitting defeat. But in reality, there are always elements in an individual’s life that they have absolutely no control over; and the sooner that they are able to accept the negative influences in the life and even the negativity that exists within them, the better it is. Acceptance is incredibly valuable when we are powerless to make a difference. We could all do with more acceptance in our day to day lives. 

As an audit, take a look at some of the things that you are working on today and see if you can apply the Wheel of Change to figure out not just that you need to create and eliminate, but also that which you need to preserve and accept as well.  

Pick up a few areas of your life you are proud of right now and assess how long it took you to get there; what all you had to constantly add, eliminate, maintain and accept to reach this state which makes you proud. Apply the same to that which you wish to achieve in the future and know that there's no shortcut to getting there.

It takes all the three pillars of time, space, and matter to be in equilibrium to inch closer to the state you wish to achieve and is very much attainable if you remain consistently and constantly at it.