The phrase I hear most at the moment in self-employed circuits is “I just don’t have the time.”
And when I look back over the last few years, our relationship with time has taken us on such a journey.
When I was at the start of my coaching career and working with a lot of 1:1 clients, 2020 hit. And because of COVID and lockdown, we all had a lot of time on our hands.
We couldn’t travel, we couldn’t go and see our friends, we couldn’t even go to work sometimes – many of the people I coached were on furlough from corporate jobs.
So the time was ample to build a website, figure out mailing list set up, engage and build an audience on social media (where else could you hang out?!) and attend lots of group programmes and CPD trainings to become a better practitioner and business owner.
I was doing it all from my sofa and kitchen table. And so were the people I was working with.
Roll around to 2026 and the story couldn’t be more different.
We’re awash with things to do.
Travel is open, the weather right now is glorious and we want to get outside, our jobs have ramped right back up and we’re working hybrid and constantly.
For me since 2020 I now have two children, not zero as I started January 2020. And so my life is a lot more full with playdates, school drop offs, music classes, parties, emotional management, re-parenting myself, clothes washing and sorting, potty training and on and on…
For me as well in the last two years I’ve gone back to corporate work full time. And I co-founded RepGuardia in 2025, so technically I’ve got three ‘jobs’ that I’m trying to juggle, with ever decreasing energy as I hit 40 this year and have finally come to accept I do not have endless energy to pull 3am finishes on the regular any more.
The irony is that in 2026 we have AI tools we never had in 2020 that profess to make us more efficient and save us time. But which in reality for solopreneurs seem to just pump out more overwhelming amount of content, more actions, more ideas or more things to do than ever before.
AI can actually end up making us feel bad that we’re not getting more done given the promise of unlimited productivity with its support (but that is a story for another post I feel…).
And so, as I’ve seen for years, the push from solopreneurs is always to be more disciplined. To just try harder. To just get on with it. To just stick to the plan.
Keep on pushing through.
But what if the problem isn’t time?
And what if pushing through harder wasn’t actually the solution?
What if it’s the way you think about your time and whether you have ‘enough’ of anything in your life?
I attended a workshop about this exact topic recently. Abundance vs. Lack. Enough vs. Not Enough. Being in surplus vs. being in deficit.
We looked at where these ‘not enough’ thought patterns have come from and why we all default to saying we don’t have enough time, money or resources. And we could all relate of course.
Our parents. Our previous jobs. The communities we sometimes frequent. They instilled in us a ‘there isn’t enough to go around’ set of beliefs.
This is my first T in my TRUST framework as well – Tune in and Trace.
Acknowledging and noticing where these stories of “money doesn’t grow on trees” or “I’ll just have to work harder” were planted in us (tree planting pun intended). It’s real and valuable work because we can’t change a belief we can’t articulate or see where it’s come from.
But observation alone does not shift a deeply held identity.
“I am someone who is always behind and never has enough time” is not a thought you can think your way out of by deciding to think abundantly instead.
Telling someone to notice their scarcity mindset and choose abundance is like telling someone who is afraid of water to just decide they enjoy swimming.
The belief lives in the body, in the daily behaviour, in the evidence the brain has collected over decades. It’s become who you are. One client said to me “my struggles are what connects me to my family” and I have never felt that so deeply. Struggling with time, money and work are what she talks to her partner about, what she texts her cousins to get advice on and what makes her feel understood by her parents. That’s a big deal to let go of.
To change your fundamental identity into someone who by default thinks that resources are infinite and available, you need new evidence, not just new awareness. And a willingness to accept that your identity will shift along with it.
It’s important at this point to say that thinking abundantly and letting go of scarcity/deficit mindset does not get rid of the fact that your mortgage, childcare and living expenses need paying.
It’s not a magic fix. It doesn’t make bills go away.
I love this article from Sarah Dean at Well Spent that says that liking yourself doesn’t magically make your mortgage get paid or your debt go away.
Those things are all a reality.
But the way you respond to those realities is totally different when you think and speak differently to yourself. And when you believe that more is available and possible for yourself.
My most favourite resource when it comes to shifting your mindset about ‘enoughness’ was actually an episode of Be Antiracist – bear with me while I explain how it’s relevant!
In the episode Ibrim X Kendi interviews Heather McGhee, author of The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.
In the episode she talks about how the pervasive myth we are sold that there is ‘not enough’ to go around – money, work, houses, time etc. etc. divides us and keeps the status quo.
When we shift into believing there is more than enough to go around and we access it, how you approach your time and your goals changes.
Again, not because society changes or the gas bill suddenly disappears. But in the lightness and opportunity that comes with thinking differently about what is available.
This is where my Test and Observe step comes in. The final T in my TRUST framework (you can read more about the framework here if you want the full breakdown).
We can’t just change a belief by noticing it and saying / reading / writing / listening to a different version.
We need a behaviour shift, small and specific enough to generate new data.
We need to do something. So that our brains build evidence that a new way of thinking and existing is available to us. Not just hoping for it.
It doesn’t have to be big or grand. In fact, I’d encourage small and if anything, easy.
Things like:
Block one hour and protect it completely. Notice what happens. Notice that the business does not collapse.
Say no to one thing that was on your to-do list out of obligation. Notice what you feel. Notice what changes.
Finish work at a set time for one week. Track what you observe about your output and your anxiety.
Each experiment gives the brain something the pep talk cannot: proof. Not that you have “an abundance mindset” but that you can handle doing less, resting more, or protecting time without everything falling apart.
That is how the belief shifts.
Not by thinking differently first. By acting differently first and collecting the evidence.
Scarcity mindset around time is a self-trust problem.
Underneath “I never have enough time” is often “I don’t trust myself to use the time I have well.”
So more time doesn’t solve it.
More tools don’t solve it.
More strategy and accountability doesn’t solve it.
Because the issue is not the resource. It is the belief about your relationship to the resource.
When you start to trust yourself to make good decisions about your time, to protect it, to use it intentionally and to rest without guilt, the scarcity story starts to loosen.
Personally I have been working on noticing and stopping myself saying “I don’t have enough time” (which feels like a constant reality, when you feel behind on literally every aspect of life, relationships and work) and replacing it with “I use my time well.”
Notice I don’t replace it with “I have lots of time!” or “Time is abundant!” or “Time is a man made concept and doesn’t exist!” My brain will not get on-board with that.
But what it does believe is that I can use my time well.
And when I say that to myself and go and build evidence for that – by time blocking, tracking my tasks, planning my day the night before, getting to the end of a day and writing down what I accomplished and what went well, things shift. I start to see and believe even more deeply that I am indeed good with time.
What do you really believe about time?
That it runs out before the work is done? That you will always be behind? That rest has to be earned?
Where did that belief come from? And what is one small experiment this week that would give you evidence it doesn’t have to be true?
If you want help building experiments that challenge your beliefs around ‘enoughness’ then access my Trust Challenge: a 5 part private podcast that takes you through this process of tracing the stories, writing new ones and taking a specific action to build evidence to rewire your brain for more self-trust ⬇️
The thing draining your time isn’t your workload.
It’s the mental loop you run before every decision, every piece of content, every bold move you almost make.
Trust Club is where that loop gets shorter.
Find out more and join ⬇️
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