Smart people know where to use their talents and how to use their time.

You have to use your talents towards people who are ready to receive them. That’s the key thing.

If you are trying to help people in your life who aren’t ready to receive that message, you are wasting your energy. The hardest thing for me to realize was that I can’t do the work for people, they have to do that. My job is only to guide people, to ask them the right question so that they can discover the answers. If someone is coming to you for help with the same thing over and over and over again, are you really doing them a favor by helping out every time? They keep coming back because they are not ready to receive that message. And so smart people know when to deliver that message and when to stop. They know how to use their gifts and they know how to use their time. So they’re not wasting their time, and they’re honoring their gift because that time that you are spending towards someone who is just draining you and wasting your time is time you’re taking away from people who are in the position ready to receive it. You’re going to be making a bigger impact that’s going to be the best use of your time.

This is something that I always say when I’m teaching cycling. I always tell them don’t clench on to those handlebars, which wastes energy and the same applies to things in our lives. You have to know where you need to focus your energy so that you can make the most impact so that you don’t feel like you just keep wasting time telling this person the same thing over and over again and they’re not listening. You’re wasting your time and theirs.

Another important this is that you should never be working harder than that person that is coming to you for help…ever. They are the ones that come for help, they should be working the hardest. You should not be doing the work for them, give them everything you know to help them out but when you see that you’re working harder than that person, that’s a sign you need to back off because you are not supposed to be doing the work for them. The journey is the best part and you’re robbing them of that! I used to do this a lot in the past. Especially in past relationships. I focused my energy in all the wrong places and I would just keep trying to help this person and help them do this and do that and I kept telling them that you need to do this, why are you doing this and not that, and then years went by I realized that I’ve wasted so much time and this person never changed or learned anything. I kept doing the work for them…

I see this behavior a lot in women. Some women are just attracted to people who need help and they think that need to fix them. Women have that mentality. They feel like they need to fix people. And I have news for you…you can’t fix people! They have to be in the position where they are ready to receive the message.

Smart people know where to use their energy and how to use their time and it took me about eight years to realize this; to realize that I can’t keep wasting my energy because it drains me. Not being able to realize if someone was ready for my message really damaged my relationships with people. By the time that I realized that the person wasn’t on the same page as me, I was already fed up and ready to never talk to them again. I had already become hostile towards them. Every little thing would just trigger an angry response.

Here are two ways that you can honor your time:

1. You can always tell if the person is ready to receive a message.

If someone’s coming back to you with the same thing, over and over again and they want you to do the work for them, that’s a big sign. Never ever work harder than that person that’s coming to you for help. It’s not an easy thing to do and it took me really long time to realize that and to actually be able to stop myself and say this person is not ready to receive my message and I should back off. And when I did that I’ve realized that all of a sudden I was able to impact so many more people.

I was able to redirect that energy to people who were ready. They had done the work and they were ready to get the guidance that they needed and they took off with it, they did the work. When the student is ready the teacher will appear, right? So you have to stop wasting your time and your energy.

2.You need to know what you need to not do yourself

There are so many things you should be delegating to other people and that maybe you should stop doing altogether. Smart people know what their talents are and know what things they shouldn’t be doing. You should redirect that energy into that one thing that you’re actually really good at. That one thing that will impact and change the world. So think about your daily routine. Think about what you do throughout the day and then ask yourself, “Should I really be doing this? Do I need to be doing this? Is this a waste of my talents? Could I delegate this to someone else? Or could I just eliminate it altogether because really I don’t need to be doing this?”

Try these two things out and let me know how it goes. Did you save some time? What did you do with your time instead? You’ll be able to impact so many more people.