Ten minutes of doing something that fills you and nurtures you, something you love, can make the difference later in your day. Those ten minutes of you time just may fill you up enough so you aren’t running on empty.
For the last month I made a commitment to my dog to walk him for at least ten minutes every day, rain or shine, busy or not. Ten minutes doesn’t sound like very much time. A, not enough time to exercise a five year old dog and B, ten minutes is nothing as far as time out of your day, equating to a pretty easy commitment.
How often do we have things we really long to do and instead of doing them we let the day fill up so that at the end of the day we are frustrated for not having done it? You with me?
So I chose something I long to do, walk my dog more, and I wrote down my commitment and shared it with my accountability partners. If I didn’t do it I lost points for a game we were playing for thirty days. A game designed to create new habits.
Turns out the ten minutes usually evolved into twenty, a twenty minutes I would not have normally given myself. Too much to do. Too many excuses. As a result I not only received points and won the game with my partner, I got the gift of receiving the benefits of a daily walk, even if a short one. A happy dog took away the guilt I was allowing myself to feel when I wasn’t able to take him for a walk. As my dog enjoyed the time to sniff out the neighborhood, I was able to take deep breaths, enjoy the beauty of nature and relax a bit. The result, definitely not an empty cup for taking ten or twenty minutes out of my day, just the opposite, yes you know the answer…a more full cup. A cup with substance in it I could pull from when other stresses came up in my day.
You know the question is coming next. The question is, what is it you long to do but don’t think you have time for? And what are you willing to create ten minutes for in your day? Okay, two questions.
I longed for a daily walk with my dog and because I didn’t have an hour or two in my day to do it, I wrote it off completely. By placing my value first, stating my committed intention, and having to mark it off for points with my accountability partners I was able to fulfill a heartfelt desire.
Although at first ten minutes sounds like nothing it really ended up being everything.
Cheers, Jenny
