Intellectual reasoning and practical behavior aren’t always congruent. Professional results commanding high remuneration only occur when they are preceded with a mind-set on victory and the disciplined behaviors that one can refine to optimize results. Often is-the-case where the “hoped for” results are much greater in magnitude than the rigor and discipline people commit to achieving them.

Logically people know one won’t occur without the other, yet often people are surprised when they don’t. This frequently occurs with Time.

Would results in your life and business be more significant if your decisions about how you use time were congruent with the following beliefs?

1. Time is your most valuable asset – Only you truly decide how to invest your time. Your decision about that comes before any activity or result in life or business can occur, which there in makes the value of that moment in time more valuable than the result. Your ability to make the use of time more valuable correlates to the quality of the dreams and goals that attract you and drive your decisions about time.
2. Time is finite, and it all gets used – No one knows when they have nothing left in their time account. Without setting clear goals about when life or business results are desired, will you use time “in your comfort zone” getting results similar to what you experience today? Or will you use time to “step out of your comfort zone” to implement the new behaviors and habits that will contribute to newer, better results?
3. Someone makes a decision about how you invest your time – How much of your time are you choosing to invest the way you want and need to and how much do you invest because someone else needs your unplanned focus? Someone else may distract you – who is making the choice to let that happen?
4. Keeping score regarding time is a discipline professionals embrace to help them win – Keeping score about the amount of time lost to distraction or activities where the real value is overestimated could guide focus on those that truly are important to your success. That which gets measured gets managed and can easily be improved.

Beliefs any of us hold always show up before sustainable results do. Is your intellect enough to influence more productive behavior where time is a factor? Or are you more influenced to act when you witness someone else’s success story in an area you are pondering a next step? Perhaps something else is your influence, are you in touch with that?

Achieving the lifestyle quality you dreamed about when you first started your business is a marathon, not a sprint.

Discipline to set clear and motivating goals, to step out of your comfort zone to try new things, to truly own your choices for your time investments, to make critical decisions about what to do with your time and to keep score regarding your planned and actual use of time fosters the habits professionals rely on for success. If now is not the time for you to examine your beliefs about time, when will it be?