“I Don’t Have Time.” The Problem I Keep Running Into

Since opening Forged Jiu Jitsu here in Ozark, one conversation keeps repeating itself. I hear it from good people across Ozark, Nixa, Springfield, and the surrounding areas. People who are hardworking, who care about their families, who genuinely want to improve themselves. The words are always a little different, but the meaning is the same.

“I’d love to try it. I just don’t have time.”

I understand it, because life is full. Work runs long. Kids have practices and events. Evenings disappear faster than expected. Most adults feel like every hour already belongs to someone else. By the end of the day, there’s not much left in the tank, and taking on something new can feel selfish or unrealistic.

What makes this difficult for me isn’t frustration with people. It’s that I believe them. They aren’t making excuses. They’re tired. They’re carrying responsibility. They’re trying to do the right thing for their families. And yet, almost every person who tells me they don’t have time also tells me something else in the same conversation. They talk about feeling more stressed than they used to. About wanting to get back in shape. About missing the feeling of being strong, capable, or disciplined. There’s usually a quiet admission that somewhere along the way, they’ve let part of themselves slip.

That’s the part that’s been sticking with me lately, and honestly, it’s something I’ve been praying on. As a business owner, it would be easier to just say people need to make time and move on. But I don’t think that’s the real answer. If this many good people feel stuck in the same place, then there’s something deeper going on. And if Forged is going to serve this community the way I believe it should, I need to understand that better.

Because the issue doesn’t seem to be time alone. People make time for what they believe is essential. We don’t skip work because we’re busy. We don’t skip showing up for our kids because we’re tired. We protect what we’ve decided matters. So when someone says they don’t have time to train, what they’re really saying is that they haven’t yet decided it’s something worth protecting space for. That isn’t a judgment. It’s just honest.

What I keep coming back to is how easy it is for adults to slip into survival mode without realizing it. You wake up, you work, you handle responsibilities, and by the end of the day you’re exhausted. Weeks turn into months, and months turn into years. Growth becomes something you used to do instead of something you’re still pursuing. Getting stronger, more disciplined, more capable starts to feel like a season of life that has already passed.

And in the middle of all of that, our kids are watching.

They don’t listen as much as they observe. They see how we handle pressure. They see whether we keep improving or slowly settle. At some point every parent has to wrestle with an uncomfortable question: do my kids see someone who trains and grows, or someone who talks about it but never quite makes time? Are they learning that adulthood means continuing to sharpen yourself, or just maintaining until the years pass?

These aren’t easy questions, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers yet. That’s part of why this has been on my mind so much lately. If so many people feel like they don’t have time to become stronger, healthier, and more capable, then maybe the problem isn’t as simple as scheduling. Maybe it’s something deeper about how we view time, responsibility, and what we believe we’re allowed to invest in ourselves.

That’s the question I’ve been sitting with.

Because what if the problem isn’t that people don’t have time at all?

What if it’s that the way we’re spending it is slowly costing us more than we realize?

A follow up post to come. I need time to pray…