Time, Focus & Success: The Mindset Shift Every Entrepreneur Needs
Dr. Natalie Bitature explains how entrepreneurs balance three time orientations: present, future, and past. Too much future focus breeds anxiety, too much past focus kills motivation. She recommends sensory grounding, social media limits, and staying mentally present in meetings to convert that energy into action.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Dr. Natalie and I would like to talk to you about time perception. So I read this book several years ago. It really adjusted how I was considering how I think about time. Your time perception is basically which orientation you are in your natural state. Are you present oriented, future oriented, or past oriented? Right. And there's been studies about how people perform based on their orientation. So there's a way you do it naturally, but you can also adjust it. Of course, the number one thing to be is present. A lot of like motivational speakers or performance coaches or successful people will tell you it's about being present because what you're doing in the present moment is going to affect your future. So what the study showed is that you need to have a percentage of how you think to be future oriented. The problem is if you are too future oriented, that's how you end up with like a lot of anxiety and worry because you're not in the present moment. You're constantly thinking about the future and things that haven't happened yet. So you need to be future oriented so that you can plan and execute, you can visualize and manifest, you know what direction you're going in. Right. You're more intentional about things, but you need to be able to think future oriented and then bring yourself back to the present to act on those things so that you do end up in the desired future that you want. It's useful to have some past orientation because you learn from your past. You need to know where you're coming from to know where you're going. Too much of being past oriented, you know those people who are super nostalgic and the good old days were always better than today and it makes you a bit more depressed or less hopeful, less optimistic because you think your better times were always behind you. So it's not very good for motivation. And also when you're past oriented, you're not in the present moment. You're busy reminiscing, so you're not acting on what is going to help you in the future. So everyone has all three orientations. It's just about adjusting how much time you spend in each of them. You don't want to spend too much time in the future or the past because it's going to have a negative effect on your mental health and your ability to execute in the present. Being present is challenging, but it's also the most useful thing. When you see stuff about mindfulness, about being in the moment and about engagement, you'll be shocked at how many people live life in autopilot, when you're constantly in the future or the past, or you're scrolling and you're not engaged in where you are, that means you're not being present. And yet your energy is most effective in the present moment. You can't affect your past in this moment, and you can't affect your future directly. Right now, the only thing that you have is the present moment. And learning about presence and being more present in your life is going to have a huge impact on where your life goes. You can have goals, you can have dreams, but if you're not in the present, you're living in the dream or you're living in the past, you're not going to move to any of those places because you need your present energy to drive you and to act on the things that are going to take you somewhere. But if your mental state is not in the present moment, how are you supposed to do anything? Because you need that energy here now to actually do anything. Also, when you think about anxiety or depression or thinking that the good old days were better, or one day in the future, I'll have this and my life will start, that's also not a healthy attitude. If you keep thinking like that and you're not in the present moment, then it also adds a layer of stress that makes it harder for you to execute things. A lot of therapists will tell you in this moment, what is the problem or what can you fix right now? Right now, is there an emergency? You're panicking about something that hasn't happened, or you're upset about something that already happened? And we spend so much time and energy going over and over and over it. What could I have done differently? What could I have changed? How am I going to get there? How is it going to work out in this moment? Is there an emergency in this moment? What can you really do in this moment? Can you fix this thing? Can you change it dramatically? Can you change what they said or who did it or the event that happened? In the present moment, you have so much power and learning how to harness that and keep yourself calm and keep yourself focused and understand that this is all you have. The present moment, this is the time that you have, the energy that you have. Nothing is promised for tomorrow. What has already happened has happened. This is the moment that you can adjust things, that you can change things that you really build your life in. It's now. And the present moment keeps moving and changing with the time around you. But if you don't move with it, you are now the one who is stuck, time will keep passing. The sun keeps rising and setting every day. And are you moving with the time as well? Because only your present self can move forward. And forward is the only direction that is available to all of us as people. So it's interesting to see how much time do you spend in your mind in the past or in the future versus in the present and see how much you can practice being in the present moment, putting your phone away, looking people in the eye when you speak to them, not letting your mind wander when you're in a meeting or when you're talking to someone or when you're with your friends. Now you're thinking about traffic is going to be bad. What am I going to eat later? Did I remember to send that email? That's not being present. And I think also social media takes away so much of our presence. We're giving it away to these companies that are directly trying to take it because then they're making money from your presence but it's not helping your life. So me, I always encourage having time limits for social media on your phone. I also put limits so that I know I've spent too much time scrolling in something that's not going to help me if it's for a reason. I'm going to check something or see something that they take you quickly. So it's important to see where are the things that are taking your presence? What are the things that are making you escape being in the present moment? Is it uncomfortable situations or uncomfortable conversations where you don't want to be there? So mentally you check out and you go somewhere else? Is it that you're losing time on social media? Is it that you spend your weekends playing music from the past and remembering how good the good old days were? Are you like a planner and you're spending all your time now anxious and worried and stressing and planning about where you're going to be in the future? So you need to also be a bit aware about where you might is going and take hold of that. So that's what it is to practice mindfulness, to be aware of where you are now. And one of the useful things is using your senses. What can you smell? What can you hear when you're eating food? Are you actually tasting the food you're eating or do you look at the plate and it's empty and you can't even remember what you ate? So there are things you can do to sort of pull your attention back and pull your presence back because your presence and your energy is what is going to help you to build the intentional future that you're looking for, Sam.
