The Life-Changing Time Hack No One Told You About

How NLP Can Help You Stop Wasting Time and Start Thriving

Discover a hack to take back control of your time, applying NLP and Open Acceptance to live a life you love. Use time to live your highest purpose by making the hours in your day count towards being alive, rather than being stuck in the same stories, habits and behaviours that leave you feeling less than inspired, happy or at peace.

What if you had only 7 days left to live?

Just 10,080 minutes on the clock. 

What would you do with them?

Would you stress about work? Stay angry with your kids? Resent your spouse or continue to hold that grudge against your mother?

Or would you forgive and let go? Enjoy being present with those you love? Share what you have? Relax and have fun? 

Time is a funny thing. We think we have so much of it. 

Until we don’t. 

Something happens when the clock starts ticking. When we’re slapped in the face to live our life—now. We suddenly develop an urgency to be alive. 

That’s if you’re lucky enough to wake up—before it’s too late. Not all of us have that privilege. 

So what would you do differently if you knew the end was around the corner?

How would you spend it? What would you change? 

The Hero’s Journey

What if you lived each day as if it were your last.

Life is a journey. A story through time. 

Every story starts at the beginning (you probably celebrate yours each year), with a middle and an end. 

For most—the end is unknown. 

The time between birth and death is the middle. It’s what we call life. Until it ends, and the great game of life—is over. 

Most of us live like we have all the time in the world. But the reality is, you don’t. Everything changes all the time. You never know which day will be your last. 

The “hero” awakens to this universal truth. 

They answer the call—

To love more.

Now. 

There is Only Now

We humans have this cunning ability to tell stories. Mostly we tell them to ourselves. When we do so, we pretend to be somewhere other than here. 

And we cut ourselves off from the love that is now. 

Like a virtual reality game that keeps us in a state of a waking dream, for hours, days, weeks—sometimes even years. 

Telling ourselves the same stories. Repeating the same habits, patterns and behaviours—time after time. 

Until it’s too late. 

Time is Relative. 

It seems to slow down and speed up.  

Mostly, that has to do with how present we are. 

When we think we’ve got all the time in the world, we’re not really alive. Time goes by super fast. The years catch up with us. We age. And get sick. Because we’re not really there. 

When Time is Never Enough.

You’re absent; asleep at the wheel of life. 

But if you’re lucky—somewhere along your journey you will wake up from your illusion of time. 

Although it’s not necessary, it’s usually accompanied by a kind of cosmic smack that jerks you awake to the reality that tomorrow is not guaranteed. Time is short. Your opportunity to live is now. 

You stop for long enough to truly listen. To see through your own BS and re-prioritise your life to focus on what truly matters—before it’s too late.

To love, now. 

When that happens, your presence—with yourself—helps to slow your experience of time down. Because you’re there, time expands to meet you. You experience more joy. More love. More life. 

Not because life changed. Because you did. 

The Dance of Time

We all have the same number of hours in a day. 

In a week. 

A year. 

But in life? We have no idea. 

Like the great waltz of life, there is a rhythm to time. With each beat, an opportunity to meet it—with love or with fear. 

There is a time for everything. 

Backwards and forwards life dances you through time—until your music is over and a new story begins. 

To be ‘present’ in the past or future is a subtle trick of the mind that steals your life force—your happiness, your joy. Like a sneaky slight of hand it makes you think you have more (or less) than you do, but essentially robs you of the opportunity to love, now. 

It’s A Universal Law

Consider this: There is a time for everything. And in reality, everything has a beginning, middle and end. So too, does every ending, birth a new beginning. 

NLP or Neuro-Linguistic Programming—is a tool for understanding these laws of the mind (and time) and gives you the tools to help you use them better. 

Let’s look a little deeper, by seeing how this thinking applies to 3 universal laws NLP teaches us:

1. The Law of Cause and Effect

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. As too is there a cause and effect side to life. 

Both sides exist and there is a time for both—a time to be on the cause, and the effect side of life: 

• A time to be angry
• A time to blame 
• A time judge
• To hurt
• And a time to feel guilty

But so too, is there a time to be on the other side. The cause side of life: 

• A time to take responsibility 
• A time to be happy 
• A time to let go
• To forgive
• And to love

2. The Law of Perception is Projection

This universal law says that everything you see outside yourself is a reflection of something within yourself. 

• There is a time to blame
• To judge
• To be right 
• Point fingers
• And to be the victim

Yet too, is there a time to take responsibility on the other side of this law:

• A time to accept responsibility
• To look within
• To be honest
• To see
• And to choose another way

3. The Law of Model of the World

This law says that everybody has their own story—or unique programming that shapes how they view and interact with the world. The reasons why they do the things they do. 

This means there is a time to:

• Think only of yourself
• To judge
• To be right
• To be selfish 
• And opinionated 

As too, is there a time to:

• Open up
• Understand
• Forgive
• Have compassion
• And consider another point of view

The Only Constant In Life Is Change

And change happens every moment of every day.

Like the great rhythm of life, there is a time for everything. But somehow we’ve created an illusion of sameness that makes us forget this. 

• We build our big houses that seem to stay the same year after year
• We hold onto the same things
• Drive down the same streets 
• Tell the same stories
• Eat the same food

Until it ends. 

Until then—we are lost in our ‘personal’ dramas. Stuck in the sameness of our self-created “groundhog day”. Trapped in an illusion of safety and security that keeps us spinning in more meaninglessness.

And we wonder why we’re so unhappy, tired, unfulfilled and stressed. That’s why we need more drugs, alcohol, sex and money—to simply feel alive. 

In our projections—we are the cause of our own great suffering. And because the subconscious mind cannot not create—we keep re-creating more of the same. 

Until we decide—enough is enough. 

The Paradox of Time 

No matter how hard we try to hold onto the same—time moves—every moment, of every day. 

Yet, the great paradox of life is that there is never a time apart from now. 

While you’re alive—it never too late to change. 

Yesterday is over, and tomorrow is not guaranteed. Isnt’ it time to accept there must be another way?

Accepting The Wholeness Of Life

The Open Acceptance Method (OAM) is my personal practice for applying NLP to live on the cause side, rather than the effect side of life, and to be alive and open to love, now. 

It is a method I have developed to bring myself back from the pain of my mind—into the wholeness of life happening now. To be present; in acceptance of this moment—as it is.  

A way to let go of the past and to trust life, by being fully present with the totality of the moment—with an open heart. 

Remembering, there is a time for everything. 

• There is a time to be stuck, and a time to let go. 
• A time to live, and a time to die. 
• A time to go within; a time to get outside. 
• A time to rest, and a time to push. 
• A time to love, and a time to be sad. 

OAM is the art of being present with it all. 

Not attached to the ‘good’. And not resisting the ‘bad’. But by being present with it all. Open and awake in the totality of the experience. 

This is the art of being alive—to dance in awareness and acceptance of the whole damn spectrum of life. Without attachment. And without judgement. 

Are You Listening? 

You have a sense of right and wrong inside you—everyone does. Call it your own internal guidance system that is connected to the highest good for you and all of life, in each moment. 

It always knows what’s best for you—the little voice that whispers ‘no’, when your head says yes. 

Do you listen?  

Most of us don’t. 

Because we hear. We hear the sound of our own voice. The other one, in our heads. The one that’s preoccupied with the past or future—with what it wants. That’s not who we are all, at all. 

But we think that voice is us.

It’s not. 

How To Be More Present 

The art of being present requires we first call ourselves on that voice. 

How?

Make an acknowledgement about something that is stuck in your head; that’s ‘wrong’, or hurting you. 

This requires you first stop for long enough to truly listen to the other voice—by being super honest with yourself.

And listening to your heart.  

Your self-honesty allows the space for your remembrance of the truth of who you are, and allows the opportunity to get out of your automatic way of thinking—where you’re stuck in an old agreement with fear, and into your heartspace to create a new agreement—with unconditional love. 

*Read more on that here. 

This creates an opportunity for an ending—and every end, births a new beginning. 

When you break your agreement with fear and create a new, strong agreement with love, you will be able to be truly present with life. 

3 Ways to Love More

When you are truly present, you will be able to open to love, more. This leaves you with only 1 of 3 things you can do in any given moment—

1. Raise the Moment: 

Make something greater than it was before, by:

• Planting a tree
• Picking up a piece of litter 
• Preparing a meal 

2. Serve the Moment: 

Offer something of service to someone here and now, like:

• Listen to a friend, or a stranger—without judgement
• Give a glass of water
• Feed another human (or animal)

3. Experience the Moment: 

Simply be present with what is and experience the totality of the moment, with an open heart and mind: 

• Without judging it
• Without trying to fix, change, control or resist it 
• Just accepting it, as it is (with an open heart)

Master The Art of Stopping

Give yourself the gift of time by mastering the art of stopping to take back control of your time—within yourself.

• By remembering
• To listen
• To the present (no judgement, no attachment)

That’s really it—the only thing we’ve got when we live in a state of open acceptance—is to love, more.

At the end of the day, this is YOUR decision to be in the flow of life. 

Or not. 

The choice is yours. 

But remember this: time is now.

With only 10,063 minutes left the clock—how will you use them?

***

If you find yourself feeling unsure—a little guidance can go a long way. If you find yourself in that place, I invite you to book a free “game plan call” with me and let’s look at how I can help you to choose another way, together. 

Much love, 

Renier Jooste

Open Acceptance Method (OAM) Founder, Certified Master NLP & Hypnotherapy Practitioner, Firewalking & Breathwork Instructor, Strategic Intervention Specialist, Body Language & Micro-Expression Expert, Human Behaviour Specialist, Core Human Needs Therapy Practitioner and Reiki Level 2 Practitioner

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