The importance of quiet time

In the type of world that we live in it is easy, in fact it's most common, to have every single moment of your time filled with an activity. However it has been my experience that authentic success depends upon spending time in quiet contemplation. In the same way that effective business strategies come about as a result of the organisation taking time out to observe itself and its market, effective personal strategies arise from the self same process.

When we take ourselves out of the noise of daily living, we are able to really find out where we are at. A lot of people are so busy that they don't really don't know where they are at. Over time, this will lead to disaster at some level - a failed relationship, poor health, being in the wrong job and more. In the same way that a business, unaware of poor working conditions will loose good staff, you too will loose out if you don't regularly connect with the business of your inner self.

Most people will see the sense in all this, however few get around to making time to be on their own doing nothing. It's easier to veg out watching TV or cop out by saying family demands don't allow time by yourself. I know the excuses because I've worked them all myself!

The best way to get yourself going is to commit to a mere three minutes of inner contemplation per day. Three minutes, that's not difficult, and it certainly does not eat into your time. When I used this 3 minute approach I soon found that my resistance to doing quiet time fell away. Once the 3 minutes had become a routine, without active choice or effort. the amount of time started to increase. It wasn't too long before I was spending anything between 30 minutes to a full hour in quiet contemplation.

But in only three minutes a day, my inner self, the part of me that holds my blueprint, the part that is connected to infinite wisdom, started to have a voice. As I freed up the noise of my human self – the clatter of the mind of 2001, the demands of the body – rich images started to arise in my mind that informed me on my life at all levels.

When we regularly connect to our inner world we open a channel within ourselves that not only allows information through in those quiet times, but other times too. After a busy day settling in after a business trip, I was sitting watching TV when, out of the blue, an image of me throwing some papers into the rubbish bin earlier in the day popped up into my mind.

Having settled down to watch a sitcom, the last thing I was trying to do was tap into some profound insight, but as the image flashed through my mind, I realised that the papers in the image were in fact not only my used flight voucher, but the cheque my client had given me at the end of the workshop.

No prizes for guessing what I was in doing moments that followed, and my search yielded the very cheque, that I hadn't even yet realised was missing! The investment of the minutes of private connecting each day enabled me to be ahead of my own conscious thought process and activities, and if that isn't effective living, nothing is!

When we take time to open these channels through going inward on a regular basis, this is the type of practical day to today benefit one can derive. It's wrong to think that going inside is purely a spiritual pursuit, or even escapist behaviour. It's a practical device to help you be more effective in your daily living.