Change Your Life in Just One Minute

You’ve been without oxygen for two minutes…one minute more – and you’re dead. Why do we undervalue the importance of one single minute?  Olympic Swimmer Michael Phelps set new world records by seconds; Won races by fractions of a second.  Minutes do count.

Any small change you make for the better can start with just one minute.  One minute of mindfulness, one minute of meditation, one minute more of exercise – can be the start of a whole new you.  So don’t be so fast to undervalue a small amount of time.  Take for example, the coaching client who is new to exercise.  He might say apologetically, “Well, I only ran for ten minutes.”  Why isn’t that enough?  Can we appreciate that minutes are important and that over time, they add up?

Here are some more examples of what can happen in a minute:

• Miss your flight to that important event
• Enjoy your baby’s first smile
• Have an orgasm
• Avoid a deadly collision
• Lose a race or a game – or the Boston Marathon!

I’m sure you can come up with 50 more examples.

In short, every minute can be powerful.  You can start a new desired behavior for just five minutes a day and add a minute more every week. Eventually you will create powerful new behaviors or even overcome a bad habit.   So get with it:  Write your book for just 10 minutes a day, go to bed 15 minutes earlier, straighten up your nasty office for five minutes – whatever  you need –it’s okay to start small (maybe even stay small) and  make your minutes count.  Most importantly, do your best to enjoy every minute; minutes are what your life is made of.

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