The Hardest Exercise My Leaders Ever Do

Why “not having enough time” isn’t the real issue.

Leaders often come to me asking for help with what they call work life balance. They’re hiring me as a strategic partner. They’re convinced the issue is time. Time for their partner, their health, their family. They assume the solution lives in better planning, stronger discipline, or yet another calendar system.

They soon learn, it doesn’t.

They already know how to prioritize. Their calendars are color coded, optimized, and booked weeks in advance. What they struggle with is not creating space, but choosing what truly matters when work keeps demanding more and louder.

Most evenings end the same way. A quiet moment before sleep, followed by a familiar regret. They wish they had been more present with their children, more available to their partner, or had called their parents one more time. Then morning arrives, and the same choices get made again. And it’s not because they don’t care, it’s because those choices are automatic.

In our sessions, I hear the same sentences on repeat. “I’ve always struggled with this.” “I don’t have enough time.” “I’m doing all of this for the people I love.” Over time, these stop being explanations and start becoming identity. They begin to see themselves as the person who is always busy, always sacrificing, always running out of time.

Change does not start with a better schedule. It starts with a shift in identity. As Joe Dispenza puts it, change doesn’t come from wanting a new life, but from letting go of the identity that keeps recreating the old one. As long as someone believes they are the person who has no time, tomorrow will look exactly like today.

So that’s when I give them a simple but confronting exercise. I ask them to sit down with a piece of paper, yes, actual pen and paper, and answer one question.

Who are you before your job title?

And then…silence.Sometimes tears. Sometimes they bring excuses why they did not do the exercise. It takes a few session to actually do it. They simply avoid looking themselves in the mirror.

Many leaders are so fused with what they do that they’ve lost touch with who they are. When they finally start writing…CLARITY. They reconnect with what truly matters to them, and from that clarity, a non negotiable is born.

And our SELF-LEADERSHIP journey begins.

What about you?

Who are you before your job title?