The 10 Minute Theory

Happy Thursday! I hope that this finds you well and gearing up for a fabulous season. How’s that summer checklist coming?! I guarantee that your time will feel different if you implement those simple strategies for making the most of it!

Today I want to talk about what you can do in 10 minutes. And to stick with the theme, I’m going to make this as short and potent as possible so that you can finish this, too, in 10 minutes and still have time to get something else done. Because 10 minutes is an eternity.

Remember being in time out as a kid? Sitting on a bench or in a corner away from the action while an adult sat with a timer, keeping watch, and all you could do was sit, for what seemed like forever waiting for five minutes to be over. Have you been in line at the DMV? Watched commercials during an intense show? Tried to clear your mind for ten minutes? Taken a pregnancy test? We’ve all been placed in situations in which time distorts and we lose our grip on its passage. It goes both ways of course. Meeting our heroes, playing at the beach, eating something we love, being super productive or reading a good book makes us lose track of the time the other way. All this to say, anything can happen in ten minutes.

You can change your life in 10 minutes.

I’m not talking about winning the lottery, meeting your soulmate, avoiding an accident or saving someone’s life, though that’s all possible too! I mean that in 10 minutes you can take real action on the things that you want to improve in your life. You can move toward those huge dreams and big goals and impossible hopes by simply doing something about them for ten minutes.

All those great goals are stuck as high and lofty ambitions until you do something about them. Thinking about them, pondering how great life will be when you are fit, and rich and free and brilliant is a wonderful exercise. One that I recommend! However, unless you actually put in some work, it will forever be a mental exercise that gets you all excited before you stumble back to harsh reality. If you are willing to invest 10 minutes in your goals for a better life, you can make those dreams a reality.

You know that fitness goal you have? What would happen if you dedicated ten productive minutes a day to it? Do you think you could improve a relationship in ten minutes? Would your house be drastically tidier, more comfy and happier if you spent an additional 10 minutes on it? Could ten minutes change your outlook? How about your cooking skills, stress level, or creative skill?

Everyone can find ten minutes that is literally going nowhere. Not the ten minutes that you spend eating breakfast, or the few minutes before you go to sleep. I don’t buy in to those teachers who think that every minute of your day should be accounted for and in use and optimized by listening to a podcast while you shower, learning French while you make dinner, doing squats while you load the dishwasher and only seeing your friends at the gym. We all need mindless time, and time to breathe, and time to focus on being present. I am however someone who has specific goals and things that I wish I had accomplished at the end of the day that I didn’t attempt because they felt just too big. I too am daunted by my own dreams and expectations.

But I have found huge progress, fulfillment and peace in deciding that my goals are worth whatever time I can give them, even if that’s only ten minutes. Because anything can happen in ten minutes.

So what are you going to do? A ten minute tidy around your house at the end of the day? A ten minute foot rub at the end of a long day? Ten minutes of your favorite book? Will you take a mile jog? Spend 10 minutes tackling the first step of that huge project? Or maybe your 10 minutes will be spent snuggling your dog, calling your mom, writing a letter to a friend, or sharing a hilarious cat video.
Remember, any progress you make IS PROGRESS!