The One Thing You Need to Change Your Life

Ten minutes a day to achieve all the things

Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash

Do you want to get in shape? Write a book? How about start a business? Why haven’t you done it yet?

I’ll tell you why: it’s too daunting.

Who wants to give up carbs, start running every morning, Yoga in the evening, and weight training two or three times a week? I mean, it sounds cool, but going from a Netflix binge lifestyle to that is too much at once.

The problem is that any big goal you have will entail a full schedule of complicated things. Sadly, there’s no getting around it.

So how do people accomplish these goals? With momentum.

There are two aspects to momentum:

1. Goal momentum
2. Daily momentum

Goal momentum looks like starting small and slowly ramping up over time. Ten push-ups become 100, then turn into bench presses. One hundred words a day turns into 1,000. You get the idea.

Daily momentum looks like small commitments each day that could lead to more, but don’t have to. A goal to work out for ten minutes could turn into an hour when you get in your groove, or you could be having a low-energy day and stop at ten minutes. It’s not like you need a timer or anything.

Similarly, a daily 100-word goal could turn into 2,000 before you even realize you kept going.

“An object in motion stays in motion.” — Sir Isaac Newton

This is how you eat an elephant: by committing to one bite at a time. If you’re still hungry after that, keep going. For more no-nonsense publishing advice, sign up for my newsletter.