Changing my life, 5 minutes at a time.

Today I managed 7657 steps. It's fair to say my neck is feeling better and while I'm not ready to run yet I felt freer in my movement, less protective. I did a round of EFT (tapping) myself on the thing I found to be a "pain in the neck" before I had breakfast. But once my tummy started rumbling I stopped knowing that I had a full session with a practitioner later today.

The session went well. We focused on my neck and the thing that been bothering me so much. I'm not quite willing to talk about it (yet?) but suffice to say that the situation I'm in has triggered a lot of very old wounds. I spent an hour yawning and clearing and releasing; I'm so grateful to this practitioner who I've been doing swaps with for over a year now.

There's nothing like being in a safe, trusting relationship to let all your sh*t out.

On a lighter note, I've been trying something since I got back from our holiday: 5 minute focused sessions doing things I've been putting off.

It was something my brother suggested that I think he got from James Clear and 'Atomic Habits' (a book I've yet to read but is firmly on my list). I've also seen the same thing suggested, in brief, in the book I'm currently reading, 'Switch: how to change when change is hard'. I highly recommend this book.

What's the idea? Well, look at something you find hard to do and you keep meaning to do and it would serve you to make a habit and just do it for 5 minutes a day (or the smallest meaningful chunk of time possible).

When I struggle to write a Hive post because I'm tired from creating content for my business or training for my new job or making endless decisions about my business, I set a timer for 5 minutes and start writing. Usually, I have more to say after that 5 minutes and so I keep on writing and I'm okay with that.

But I'm also doing it with my money management. I'm so much better at dealing with money than I used to be. So. Much. Better. But I still find that I put it off and don't track my business revenue and expenses as well as I should and I miss important things. I regularly don't know how much money I've made in my business. This is a problem.

So I decided--with a little encouragement from my brother and my partner--to make money management a daily habit (instead of the trying-to-do-monthly habit that was failing miserably) so that money management becomes normal, boring, so easy I can do it without even thinking about it.

That's the goal. And with this habit, I set the timer for 5 minutes and the rule is that I stop doing my money management when the timer goes off so that I'm left wanting. So that there's more to do tomorrow. So I get in the habit of "just showing up" as James Clear (apparently) says.

So that's it, folks. I'm "just showing up" for 5 minutes anytime something feels too hard or too scary or even too boring (house cleaning anyone?).

Have you read James' book? And/or have you ever played with this "showing up for 5 minutes a day" habit creation idea? I'd love to know! Share your experiences, wins and learnings in the comments.

All photos by Brad, my ever-present, ever-amazing photographer 😃 Find more of his photos over at @new.things.