Managing Your Personal Portfolio
Have you ever felt like your days are on autopilot − You’re cycling through the motions of your obligations and routine and feeling like you have hardly any time or energy for the things you most enjoy? This pattern is common, frustrating and can feel perpetually self-defeating.
What if instead you saw yourself as a Personal Portfolio Manager? It’s natural to see such a title as assigned to professionals who serve as financial advisors or steward investment funds. You may have such an advisor and wonder how you could navigate your financial future without their guidance. Alternatively, you may have a nagging feeling that you need one or that such a luxury is out of reach.
But look more closely at your role in curating where you spend your time and energy each day, week, year – I offer that everyone is a Portfolio Manager of their time, energy … and more.
What exactly am I referring to? One way to think about the assets in your portfolio of time and energy is what generates high vs. low value. High value is created from actions, habits and practices that nourish you, replenish your energy and support your growth and impact. Value is destroyed when the opposite occurs.
🏖️ High Value Examples: Rest; Connection; Focused Work; Movement; Mindfulness; Self-Development; Leisure; Play; Time in Nature; Service
🌋Low Value Examples: Multitasking; Overcommitting; Dwelling in Future/Past; Judging; Feeling Superior; Playing Small/Victim; Making Assumptions; Losing Perspective; Digital Distraction; Procrastinating
Explore this for yourself:
Draw two large circles. In the first, draw in, label and add a % for each of the “pie slices” indicating where you tend to spend your time and attention in a typical week. Use the categories above as a starting point and edit as needed. Be honest with yourself.
In the second circle, adjust the pie to illustrate how you would like to be allocating your time and attention based on what is most important to you.
Reflect upon your two pies. Does anything surprise you? How do you feel & what sensations arise as you contemplate them?
What is yours to do based on this insight?
What support might you need to make your desired shifts?
Of course, not everything is in your control or ever will be. Making space for this reality is a way of opening to what is ours to actively choose, design and allocate. When we loosen up on the proverbial reins in our work and personal lives, we can exhale more deeply and relax into something more genuine and spacious. Simultaneously, we receive the awesome gift of knowing just how hard we were clutching and squeezing in the first place!
On a related point, I have written in the past about the value of having a Personal Board of Directors – individuals on whom you can count to have your best interests in mind, give honest advice and provide genuine support. Such members could be mentors, close friends, colleagues, partners, coaches, teachers or spiritual leaders, to name a few. This type of community is solely yours to cultivate connection with and align. No one can do it for you – and yes, you are deserving of the luxury of such care and support.
Here are two additional contemplations to consider:
⭐ Imagine the powerful role you can play collaborating with this support network when you step into what is truly yours to do as THE curator of your time/energy portfolio?
⭐ When you live with a sense of agency, open up to Self and others and relinquish having to understand and control “it all,” what could shift or change for you?
Happy investing! And embrace the fact that market conditions are unpredictable. Don’t forget to regularly review and rebalance your portfolio.
#PersonalPortfolio #IntentionalChoices #PersonalLeadership #YourTimeIsPrecious #BeTheCurator