10 Minutes A Day

10 minutes a Day…

Again, Again, AND Again…

Yet again, I’m writing about this because I keep having conversations with people about this idea of ‘small steps over time’.  Far too often I have been guilty of the ‘You’re Lazy’ accusation.  I’ve accused myself of being lazy and I have accused others of being lazy.  Many people have told me that their problem is that they are lazy. 

People don’t work out.  Lazy.

People don’t budget.  Lazy.

People don’t cook at home.  Lazy.

Again, I’ve thrown this accusation around in my head towards myself and others, countless times.  But the older I get, the more I feel like that categorization isn’t completely accurate.  I think the real issues lie in the stories we tell ourselves about what it takes to make difficult habit changes.  

I’ve got a couple coworkers who have been trying to get into yoga.  There are tons of yoga videos on youtube and elsewhere for people of all abilities.  Also, you can find routines of varying time frames to fit your needs.  I have been urging both these guys to find a 10 minute routine and do it 2-3 times a week.  Both of them did it a few times and they both kept talking about how good their bodies felt after just one session.  They both fell off.  But I keep nudging them every time I see them, “Something is better than nothing.  10 minutes a day!”

I’m a huge believer that becoming more self aware is largely based on setting meaningful goals and persisting in trying to achieve them.  The failed attempts give us the opportunity to evaluate what we believe needs to happen versus what actually needs to happen.  In observing myself and others in the last few years, I’ve become more aware of our tendency to believe that things have to be harder than they really are.  Also, we tend to want change to happen on a shorter timeline than is realistically possible.  My coworkers want to be fit in 30 days, after doing nothing for years.  Therefore, they believe that being fit means thrashing themselves for an hour daily and then they’ll get what they want in just 30 days.  This is an oversimplification but it summarizes the cycle I have been watching people go through for 13 years.  People underestimate the demands that all their current responsibilities create and pursue exercise strategies that can only be maintained for a short period of time next to all of life’s demands:  full-time jobs, multiple children at home, marriage, houses, yards, pets, side hustles, etc.  We might be lazy but we are for damn sure overzealous, unrealistic, and impatient, among many barriers to progress.

In my book I talk about the 3rd principle of ownership being ‘maintain a vision’.  A vision is just a set of goals for the future.  I describe a quality vision as being holistic.  Holistic meaning that your goals for the future take into account how acting towards specific goals will impact the rest of your life.  This thing with exercise is just a small microcosm of that idea.  The goal is better health through focused regular movement.  What my coworkers are failing to account for is the demands of the rest of their lives.  I’ve never told them to do anything crazy.  Just 10 minutes a day a few times a week.  I have told them to take a long-term view of these behaviors.  I encourage them to commit to doing this for a year and see what happens. But they’re struggling to believe that this will do anything meaningful for them, yet they’ve already felt the benefits from just 1 or 2 sessions.  Maybe this is where the laziness comes to bear because if you know all it takes is 10 minutes a day to feel better and you still don’t do it, then maybe you are just being lazy.  I don’t know but I’ll leave you with this thought:

You are stranded somewhere and you need a dollar for bus fare.  You start looking around on the ground for loose change.  Obviously it would be great if you found a paper dollar but would you pass over pennies and nickels just to have the full dollar in one shot?  I would think not, if you really wanted to get home.  You’d pick up the change until you had the amount you needed for bus fare.  Bonus if you find a dollar.  

10 minutes a day is like the pennies and nickels on the ground.  My coworkers are stranded in a sedentary lifestyle but they keep stepping over the pennies and nickels looking for a paper dollar.  If they just picked up the change they could have been home already.  

However little, let’s get after it and stay after it!

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