Episode #332 – Discover Your Time Orientation: Embracing Time Rigidity or Time Fluidity

This is episode 332 of the Brilliant Balance Podcast, and today we are talking about how to discover your time orientation, embracing time rigidity or time fluidity.

Someday, I am going to learn how to not have these titles and concepts be a complete mouthful, but that is what you get when you are dealing with a host like me who is a total word nerd. Thanks for bearing with me as I invent these terms. I am delighted to share this concept with you today. This is a concept that I originally introduced to the podcast and to our coaching community back in 2019. I have to tell you, it is one that comes up here five years later regularly among women who were a part of this community and this audience that far back. So, knowing how many new people have arrived in the Brilliant Balance community as podcast listeners or people who get our newsletter or are in the coaching community, I think it’s time to bring this concept back to the forefront, no pun intended, since we are talking all about time orientation today. This was a concept that I found myself coaching on five years ago and decided, “Okay, I really want to get this into a podcast episode,” and then it sort of blew up. It was a very powerful shift, particularly for half of the listening audience. I’ll leave you to guess for a minute which half, time rigid or time fluid, were more affected by.

This realization, now when I look at it five years later, I actually think both groups need to be equally influenced. There is great power in understanding people who are wired differently than we are as it relates to our time orientation. I think we can create a lot of patience, a lot of compassion, a lot of understanding by really thinking about this in a slightly different way. So what I want to do today is reshare the original episode with you from back in 2019 and give it an opportunity to reach fresh audiences. Interestingly, if you think about the last few episodes, if you’re a regular listener, in episode 330, we talked about the importance of moving from learning to doing, making that shift from learning to doing. I think that one of these audiences of people sometimes has a more difficult time making that shift. Second, in episode 331, we talked about “you’re not doing it wrong. It’s actually just that hard,” and we were talking about how many things in life, you know, we think are going to be so easy, but it turns out that they are not. They are complicated and they require consistency and they require effort for us to make a shift, maybe in how we approach them to find a little bit of ease. This episode actually may be the unlocking to some of why you’re stuck, not moving into taking action or why things are feeling so hard. So I really think it’s a very powerful concept and one that I am happy to be sharing with you again today. So without further ado, this is “Discover Your Time Orientation: Embracing Time Rigidity or Time Fluidity.” Thank you for listening to this rebroadcast. Remember, if you are catching this episode for the first time, this concept originally aired back in 2019. I’m bringing it back to the forefront in 2024 with a fresh perspective.

One of the things that I will say might be sparking for you is that, because five years later, the conversation around ADD and ADHD is much more resonant than it would have been five years ago. As a kind of a button on this episode, I just want to say that if you are somebody who has gotten an adult diagnosis of ADD or if you have a child who’s being evaluated for or who is getting support for ADD behavior patterns, you may notice the correlation between time fluidity and ADD. I don’t think that’s accidental. I think it is one of the hallmark attributes of that particular diagnosis. But even if you don’t have the diagnosis, you may recognize a tendency in this direction. So I just want to remind you one last time, if you know that you are somebody who is really more time fluid, that’s where you’re comfortable, that’s how you’re wired. It is counter-culture, particularly in American culture, to live with a time fluid orientation toward time. So I just wanted you to be gentle with yourself, really honor the great power that comes with that particular orientation, and also have a little patience with those of us on the time rigid side of the continuum. And then vice versa, if you are somebody who’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is it, I’m time rigid,” that is culturally acceptable and relevant, particularly again in American culture, and this might explain some of my frustration with colleagues or family members who are more time fluid. I hope it opens up a little bit of compassion and patience as we try to find our way through how we navigate a world that we see things differently. So important in so many different aspects of our lives. Thanks for tuning in today. That’s all I have for you in this episode. Until next time, let’s be brilliant.