How come we are all so stressed? We live life at the speed of light. We expect everything to happen at the speed of light.

Have you noticed that the expected response time for anything – a request for a cup of coffee, help from a spouse, a reply to an email or text message – is reduced to nano-seconds.

All this instantaneous expectation isn’t moving us to greater success faster – it’s just making us impatient and stressed.

Take time every week, every day, to slow down, unplug from your devices, pause your busy schedule and ask yourself: “What am I trying to do?” and “Why is this important?”

Rather than inadvertently creating a life of automation, these questions put you in touch with what you REALLY want.

The ‘average’ person rarely asks these questions, however they have a profound effect when we ask them on a regular and continuous basis. See what happens when you ask this series of questions:

• “What do I really – truly – want?”
• “What do I think I’ll get from that?”
• “Why is that important?”

With children, ask yourself, “How will what I say or do right now impact them in 10 or 15 years?”

With an organisation, ask, “What could we be doing to prepare for events in 2, 5, or 10 years?”.

Of course it’s impossible to predict the future, but imagining the future AND questioning ‘why’ this is important, is still the foundation of any goal oriented progress to create a compelling vision.

Recently, the CEO of a large organisation shared how he uses this concept … “We set goals for ourselves 5 years ago and … even though we don’t have it as the main focus, recently I looked at our list, and realised we had accomplished every single thing on it. That was a jaw-dropping moment of truth for us as a leadership team. We …accomplished what we envisioned.”

How will you choose to use your nano-seconds?