Trading Time for Money

I had an unpleasant experience recently whilst building my new website.  I consider myself reasonably tech savvy (although our kids would disagree) and can usually work a lot of stuff out on my own by using the wonderful support of Google and Youtube.

However, I experienced a hiccup recently with a pesky technical issue and I spent hours upon hours trying to work it out.  The story I told myself was that I can work it out, if I dedicate enough time and energy eventually I will work it out because I always do.  I also had a story about how I needed to work it out personally because of the growth I will experience from doing something hard and persevering.

These beliefs led me to wasting two precious days chasing my tail with no sign of a resolution, a lot of frustration and a sore butt from sitting at my computer.

After taking a time-out when I sat back down at my desk, I started questioning my story.  What was the benefit of me persevering by myself with this task?  What was the financial, emotional and physical cost of me accepting this story?  What need was I trying to satisfy within myself by continuing?  Was it necessary?

The answers to my questions led me to deciding that the smart decision for me was to trade my time for money.  By deciding to outsource the job to someone who was qualified and a specialist in their field, I was able to return to my field of excellence - coaching.  I paid money to buy back the most valuable resource in my business - my time.

Often we are told in life that we should be doing all the things - doing the stuff we know how to do and are capable of performing AND learning the new stuff we are not so familiar with but want to understand all on our own.  Why pay someone to do it when you can or may be able to learn?  That's being lazy or running from a challenge...

But what if there's another story?  What if it's actually being smart and enabling you to do more of what you love, help more people whom you love and spend more time learning and growing in ways you love (not where you think you should)?

What would happen if you gave yourself permission sometimes to trade your time for money and outsource tasks which really don't matter to you?  How much time would you create for yourself to experience more of your life that does matter?

Give it a go and see what happens.

By the way, the specialist I paid fixed my issue in fifteen minutes so it didn't cost much and paid me back big time in lessons learned :)