Another 10

Shall we try for another 10 minutes?

This is an exercise to start slowing getting back into a routine that you want to have. It's a way of prodding yourself ever so slowing into doing something you claim you have no time in the day to do. The idea is to take 5 minutes, set a timer and only do that one thing. No preparation, no thinking ahead, no planning and just doing that one thing for the entire five minutes until the alarm goes off.

After you have mastered the five minutes each day and realize you have that short amount of time to do this thing, you can move on to doing it for a longer period, say 10 or 15 minutes. Soon you will be on the road to making it something that fits nicely into your regular schedule. That is how it should work. I have only attempted it once, yesterday, and it worked. I thought it couldn't hurt to try again today and see where it might lead.

The only difference is that I had to be my own silly overachiever, my own rebel that won't follow the rules exactly as laid out. I had to do 10 minutes not 5. It worked out yesterday. I managed to keep going, to keep writing for the full 10 minutes. I posted that crazy thing yesterday without much of a second glance and (goodness) any editing. I haven't had the time to really read through it again with much focus but the one time I did read it, it wasn't too bad.

The ten minutes was my way of giving myself an out. I mean, the only logical reason I wasn't taking the time to spend on this anyway was because of the fears that well up whenever you think you can't do something. By making myself do this for 10 minutes was an easy way to tell myself, "I told you so," when I didn't do it. I would become the self-fulfilling prophesy of my inner voice that tells me I can't. Do you see how I can set myself up for failing? That voice lies constantly and yet how much attention is always given to it. If a real person was constantly telling me the same things I would have walked away from them a long, long time ago. But this voice isn't as easy to walk away from. Or is it? Doesn't it really take the same amount of courage to walk away from those inner voices you know are lies as it does to a real life person.

Oh, listen. That 10 minutes alarm is going off already! Success, two days in a row.
TT