This is what I am learning for myself. Maybe it can help you too.
Step 1: Define your identity, Identify your role.
Decide for yourself what Life's principles are. Whether it's the Golden Rule, a philosophy, a religion; consciously attempt to put words to what values you believe in and would like to hold. Write them down, and live to be true to them. Then list out responsibilities you feel you have to yourself or to those around you as well as any goals you have.
Ex: I have always felt a responsibility to those around me to be successful for their sake. To be full of happiness and time and ability to be able to support anyone around me who could use some happiness, some of my time, or some talent of mine. And so I have a responsibility to find an unbottomed happiness, availability of time and attention and finance, and a responsibility to develop talents for helping others. I feel a responsibility for my wife, my parents, my brothers and sisters, my friends, and the lonely or downtrodden.
Step 2: Identify how its going
Next, make a list of the work, activities, and hobbies you have; write down how you spend your time. Think about each one, think about why you engage in it, think about the effects and consequences for good and bad it may have on you, or the people around you. If any activities do not promote your Life Principles or do not support your perceived responsibilities, put them on the shelf for 2-4 wks and see what happens.
Ex: I listed one of my activities as Video Games, I listed Pros as: relaxation, creative discovery, appreciating the creative art of others. Cons: I have a tendency to become absorbed in a game to the exclusion of work, homework, and when I play too much I end up becoming short and snippy with others if they interrupt me, or until I can play again. I decided the Cons seriously outweighed the Pros.
Step 2: Discover how it might be
Fill any holes in your time with new activities of your choice that you've always wanted to try, or other obligations you may have been neglecting.
Ex: To fill the hole of relaxation I created, I decided to invest time in rest/meditation without any distraction. To fill the hole of creative discovery and appreciating the creative art of others, I decided to take up a hobby of learning about and making my own tabletop board game, which also has the Pro have creating opportunities aligned with my perceived responsibilities.
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This is something I've been developing for a few weeks now, and I've found myself trying to get back into my old activities (like video games) and bingeing my time on them, this has made identifying the consequences and pros/cons of these activities even easier to see in my life, as well as bringing me to a realization to my fixation on them, despite an increased negative perception of my investment in them.
This has turned this guide's practice into a conscious willpower struggle within myself that is quite interesting if not frustrating! =) The more I struggle against these kinds of time investments I realize how strong and pervasive my learned habits are, and how difficult it is to manage natural emotions and my developed subconscious.
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It is obvious to me now that I am not my 'natural' self. I am not an accumulation of culture and history and social context. I am not my family genetics and developed health conditions and american schooling. These are things that developed me without my conscious consent. I am not my emotions; a bodily and culturally taught reflex. I am not my learned coping mechanisms and behaviors. I am not my logic. I am not who the world tells me I am.
I am who I say I am. I will be identified by the behaviors and thoughts I chose to cultivate, and not those that have been cultivated within me. I am taking back who I am. I will prune out the parts me that detract from where I am going; keep the parts of me that support my goals and discard the rest.
Choose who you are. Choose where you are going.
