The 15 Minute Rule

Imagination is everything. In imagination, anything can happen, anything can be. 

We imagine our better selves every day. A better life. We all do this. Somehow we always find a way to yearn for something to be different.

In better shape. More money. Better relationships. 

Now, it's best and perhaps necessary to start from a place of acceptance -- accepting who we are and that we are exactly who we should be, exactly where we should be. But that's a topic for another post. And indeed, life continues to go on regardless. Change is constant.

So, as life moves forward, we have an opportunity at every moment to contribute to a world that we dream might be. To take advantage of the opportunity, we have to bring our imaginations down to earth. We have to do the work.

And maybe it's that misalignment -- between what we dream of being in the future and what we are capable of doing today, in this moment -- that difference can seem so vast that it leaves us confused and uncertain as to how, and even if, we can ever actually achieve all that we're capable of.  All too often we do nothing.

One of my favorite metaphors for achieving positive outcomes is about spending time in the sun.

Then benefits to sunlight are immense. Of course, life on our planet wouldn't exist without it. 

And yet, here's the thing. The direct benefits to our bodies come from spending just a few minutes a day in the sun. Five to fifteen minutes is all it takes. 

Here's where the metaphor gets good and turns into practical advice, because you can't bank sunlight. You can't save it up and get the same benefits. You can't go ten days without it, and then spend two and a half hours in it, and make up for lost time.  In fact, you'll likely end up with sunburn.

Also, it has almost no negative effect if you skip a day or two here and there. The fifteen minute rule is forgiving in that way.

Fifteen minutes a day can help you write a book, or keep a blog. Fifteen minutes a day can help you gain muscle, or lose weight. It can help you build a stronger relationship, or complete a home improvement project.

You just have to decide what in your imagination you want to move toward and what fifteen minute activity will move you in that direction, whether it's writing, working out, networking, or hammering in some nails.

In addition to being forgiving, it's also motivating and momentum-building. Fifteen minutes can easily lead to twenty. It's the old physics axiom -- bodies in motion tend to stay in motion. A single fifteen minute session overcomes inertia and sets you in motion.  Consistency keeps you moving and eventually you'll be cruising along toward your goal. You just need to get on the proverbial bike each day.

The fifteen minute rule also auto-calibrates to your abilities. Fifteen minutes might produce fifty words or five hundred or five thousand.  You might do one pushup or one hundred. The outcome for those minutes doesn't matter at all. You just have to put in the time, and do only that which you're capable of doing.

What will you spend just fifteen minutes on today? Imagine what could be.