Are Your Dreams Just 30 Minutes Away?

“You have put in many, many tiny efforts that nobody sees or appreciates before you achieve anything worthwhile”
---Brian Tracy

We generally accept that it takes 30 days to change a bad habit. Just replace the old habit with a new habit for a month and you’re on your way to a new life.

And it’s commonly accepted that staying fit and healthy requires a minimum of 30-minutes of exercise each day.

During this day and age of hyper multi-tasking and competing priorities, we’re often too busy, overloaded and flat-out exhausted to take on new goals – even if we know they are the deepest desires of our heart. It just seems like too much work.

Are your goals worth 30-minutes?
But, what would happen if we dedicated just 30 minutes per day to one of these dreams? All too often goals will be set that are too big and overwhelming, or they seem attainable but we never move forward on them.

Take it easy on yourself. Make the dream palatable by breaking it down into micro-steps – 30 minutes at a time.

For example, you may have always wanted to write a novel – but the thought of pumping out 365 pages is daunting. However, if you produced just one page each day, writing for 30 minutes, you would have a finished novel in 12 months.

Perhaps you’ve fantasized about being a fashion designer and creating your own line of clothing. If it takes30 hours to make one dress, and you make a point to sew 30 minutes a day, you would have six dresses by the end of the year – halfway home to your own line!

Small accomplishments every day = Long-term success.
The 30-minute per day principle is loosely based on kaizen, the Japanese word for improvement. In business circles it’s come to mean incremental improvement over time, making small changes or innovations that lead to long-term quality. Dedicating 30-minutes each day to your most cherished goals is the incremental approach to manifesting your dreams.

By setting-up half-hour blocks of time, you’ll begin to make real progress every day. By experiencing this daily sense of accomplishment, your momentum becomes self-sustaining. The process takes on an energy of its own – and the daily successes begin to accumulate, filling you with more and more confidence.

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”
---Aristotle
“But, where will I find 30-minutes every day?”
It’s real easy to use this as an excuse – after all we each have hectic, jam-packed schedules. Employ a little creativity and objectivity. Consider these ideas:
• Get up 30 minutes earlier
? Stay up 30 minutes later
? Take a 30 minute lunch instead of an hour
? Turn off the TV – or don’t turn it on at all
? Spend 30 minutes less time on the internet (heresy, I know)
• Make coffee at home instead of stopping at Starbucks
? Eat lunch in your office instead of going out (work while you eat)

You see? Finding 30 minutes for your dreams really isn’t that out of reach.

The 30-day challenge.
Challenge yourself. Over the next 30 days, take one goal that you have and commit to working toward accomplishing that goal 30 minutes every day. Make a plan of small steps. Keep a journal to track what you’ve done. At the end of 30 days review what you’ve done.

You’ll probably find that you have accomplished quite a lot – and you’re getting closer and closer to meeting your goal. You’ll feel more confident with this sense of accomplishment and progress.

So, take the challenge. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much you can accomplish in just 30 minutes a day.