Are you in control of your life? Or is your life running you?

If you’re chasing your tail and running around from one demand to the next it can feel overwhelming. It’s as if someone else is calling all the shots and you don’t have much say in anything.

Work, children, partner, parents, family, friends, to dos, must dos, should dos… exhausting.

Sound familiar?

If you don’t feel as if you’re in control of your life anymore, as if your life is running you rather than the other way round, here is one simple thing you can do to alleviate that.

Put yourself at the top of your To Do List.

Part of the reason you don’t feel in control is because you have no space for yourself. No breathing room.

Make yourself a priority for 30 minutes every day.

Seriously.

If you can’t manage 30 minutes, take 15.

If you can’t manage 15, take 10.

Take that time to do something just for you, something you enjoy, something you want to do rather than something you have to do.

Not slumped in front of the TV mindlessly flicking through channels, or scrolling through social media. Something more meaningful than that.

A walk. A book. Meditation. Music. Something creative.

Completely immerse yourself in the activity and don’t allow yourself to be distracted.

Breathe deeply and savour it.

This. Is. Your. Time.

Your choice.

Taking this time is you taking back control and making a choice for you.

You may have a long list of things that need doing but it’s unlikely that any of them are life or death situations that require your immediate attention or can’t wait for 30 minutes.

When you’ve had that time for yourself and taken back control you will feel much more capable of dealing with everything else that life is throwing at you.

Trust me.

Stopping, when you’re busy and you don’t have time, feels counterproductive, right? But if you’re overwhelmed and in a flat spin just how productive are you being?

As the quote about meditation from Dr Sukhraj Dhillon goes… “You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day, unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.”

Try it for a few days and see just how much difference it makes.