How to Change Your Life in Just 5 Minutes
The 5 Minute Project
Five minutes can change your life. Or at least I believe that it can. This new project sets out to prove it. (P.S. If you’re not familiar with this blog or my past projects, you can find more information here).
What’s in the Way?
I’ve realized that many times, the obstacle to my success is never starting something out of fear or quitting too soon before seeing any real progress. For me, the two go hand in hand.
Sometimes I quit too soon. I wish I could be thinner in a month, and if I can’t reach that extreme, unrealistic (and unhealthy) goal, I second guess myself asking “What’s the point?” Then to cover up my shame over a perceived failure I might binge on a bowl of ice cream, which turns into not just a bowl of ice cream but also some chips and a chocolate bar because I may as well indulge now that I’ve already given in, right?
Other times, I’m so paralyzed by fear, which then manifests as indecision, that I never begin. I wish I could have that dream career, but I’m too afraid to explore what would satisfy my vocational aspirations. I worry that I will never be able to reach my goal, so instead I wander aimlessly to avoid the disappointment of failing to achieve my vision.
I tell myself I don’t have the time, motivation, or perseverance to become who I want to be. So why even bother?
But then I’m left at the same place where I began, which is precisely nowhere.
The Plan to Break Through
The only way to get over this fear of disappointment and failure is to confront it. Instead of wandering without direction, I’m going to start aiming at very small goals.
Instead of starting nowhere, I’m going to start with 5. Five minutes a day for one month adds up to 150 minutes or 2 and a half hours. Five minutes for a whole year is 30 hours and 25 minutes.
It doesn’t seem like much, but it’s much better than nothing.
Why Five is Better than None
When it’s all written out in the numbers above, I have the temptation to mock this miniscule goal. If I’m only going to aim for something so pitiful as five measly minutes, will it really do any good? Would my time be better spent watching one good 2-hour movie this month than work on a project for five minutes a day. Or why not pack all the 2 hours and thirty minutes into one day rather than spread it out?
But the truth about forming and changing habits and reaching goals is that it’s best to break a goal down into the easiest possible achievable bit. And, daily work that compounds over time is much more effective, long-lasting and impactful than large efforts that burn bright but burn out fast.
In fact, in the book Atomic Habits, James Clear advises using the 2-minute rule. You can read more about it in his article on how to stop procrastinating, but essentially he advises that any new habit should take less than two minutes to accomplish. If you want to start running, start by tying your shoes. If you want to read a book, start by reading one page.
As he puts it: “The truth is, a habit must be established before it can be improved. If you can’t learn the basic skill of showing up, then you have little hope of mastering the finer details.”
Jordan Peterson elaborates on why something is better than nothing in his short guide to the Essay writing app he created with Julian Peterson, his son.
“Most people fail a class or an assignment or a work project not because they write badly, and get D’s or F’s, but because they don’t write at all, and get zeroes. …
Essays handed in, no matter how badly written, can usually get you at least a C.
So don’t be completely self-destructive. Hand something in, regardless of how pathetic you think it is.”
Sticking with It
The next obstacle to tackle will be how to measure my progress and if I’m really sticking with it. Times flies by and without some way to track progress, it’s hard to tell if any difference is being made.
I’m often surprised when opening up my journal to see that a week or two has passed without writing a word when in my mind it feels as if only a few days had gone by. That’s why tracking is so important.
This month, I’m going to use the simple bullet journal method. I have a page for any habits I’m tracking and I’ll put an X over every day when I accomplish my goal. That way, at the end of the month I’ll be able to see how many days I really kept to the goal I was working on.
My First Five
This month’s goal is something simple, easy and healthy that I believe I can incorporate into any day – stretching.
Especially after training to run a marathon earlier this year, I noticed my muscles getting extremely tight and my flexibility noticeably decreasing. I’m sure this was due to a lack of proper stretching before and after runs and in general. So, this month I want to work on stretching more.
I’m going to follow along to the same stretching routine every day so that I can better judge how much improvement that I’ve made and take weekly pictures of my progress.
It can be difficult at times to feel as if I’m getting better at any goal when the gains every day are so minuscule. But taking pictures and comparing over time really helps to highlight the small wins.