“If you touch the lives of only a handful of other people with a message of oneness and love, you have made an incredible gift of your life”
Feather #1 acrylic on canvas 12x12
This one is for everyone that think they just don’t have the time to work on their creative project.
After all, we all have full lives. None of us just have a couple hours a day when we just do nothing, we have nothing planned. Well, it’s not totally accurate because most of us spend at least 2 hours on Facebook, Instagram, Netflix or watching TV…. But for the sake of argument, let’s say this is also time accounted for, as “relaxing”. In our busy life, it can seem impossible to take on anything else, even if it’s something dear to our heart.
Do not despair! I have good news. If you want to make a big change in your life, you don’t need to reorganize your whole life, you don’t need to become “more disciplined” or demonstrate extraordinary willpower. And you don’t need to devote 3 hours a day to it.
You just need to consistently devote 10 percent of your time to it. Until it becomes a habit.
Researches show that it takes on average 66 days to transform a behavior into a habit (simple habits take less and complicated ones take more). So don’t give up, keep at it for at least 3 months, and it will naturally become a part of your day.
When you want to get in shape, you don’t go to the gym for 5 hours once every couple weeks. You start small, 30-60 minutes 3-4 times a week, and keep it consistent. After 3 months, you will see big progress! It goes the same if you want to start a meditation practice, learn an instrument, start to paint, write a book, etc. The best way to fail is to start huge and put an enormous amount of pressure on your schedule and yourself (that is called self-sabotage by the way, I used to be an expert). Start small and keep going.
Overdoing it in the beginning can be the worst thing to do. Just like lifting too heavy of a weight when you’ve just started, or try to run one hour each day on your first week of training. You don’t need to change your whole life around. 90 percent of the time, do what you always do, and set aside 10 percent to be the artist, the creative, the lover you want to be. You will be astonished of what you can accomplish and the transformation that will start to happen in your life from just a change of ten percent.
Let yourself create a great vision of what you want to achieve. Allow yourself to shoot for extraordinary, for outstanding. Then take it one little step at a time. Make each step as small and simple as you can. Small enough to fit in the ten percent.
Have you heard the quotes: “Always shoot for the moon, even if you miss you will land in the stars” and “Each journey starts with a single step”. Well they are both right. The importance is to make the distinction between creating a big vision and taking small steps. If you try to take big steps on a small vision you will STRUGGLE. That is why you must dream big and go small. Build a huge vision to carry you through the canyon (see last week’s post). And take advantage of the ten percent, everyday.
Have you successfully taken advantage of the ten percent before? How did you do? Share with me in the comment section!