You've got 20 minutes to change your life in 100 ways. Go.
This is the premise of an exercise I tried once, when I was feeling stuck in
life. I wasn't sure what was amiss, but the routine I had fallen into was not
satisfying the inner voice in me that insisted there was something else out
there for me. (See also: Change Your Life With Storytelling)
After trying (forcefully) to understand what was going on, reading self-help
books, filling out aptitude tests, and working with business and life coaches, I was given a suggestion that
became a catalyst for some pretty big personal changes.
Here is how you can change your life in 20 minutes, step by step:
- Clear all distractions. Turn off the phone, the TV, the computer. Lock your
door, and go to a quiet place.
- Sit down comfortably at a desk or table, with a blank piece of paper and a
pen in front of you.
- Set a timer for 20 minutes.
- Go. Write down 100 things you want to do. Or careers you want to have. Or
people you would like to meet. The sky is the limit.
- Don't be realistic. Dream big. Write down the craziest things you can think
of, as well as the things that you don't even think bear mentioning because they
are so simple. Write it all down.
- Work quickly. 20 minutes isn't very long, and you have 100 items to get
through, if you can. Don't think about whether or not to write down an idea —
just write. Write everything that comes to mind, even if it doesn't make
sense. Just keep on writing, and don't stop until that timer goes
off.
Something happens after about 10 or 15 minutes if you employ the exercise to
its full potential. You stop caring about what specifically the ideas are, and
you start to release an inner creativity that may have been locked away for a
while. In an effort to get through 100 things in 20 minutes, you start to
write outlandish things down that you aren't even really sure you want, but that
are ideas that came to you nonetheless.
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Ding! The timer goes off. No matter where you are in the process, or how many
items you have written down, stop. (OK, if you are really on a roll and have a
few more to write down because the juices are flowing, keep going. I won't
tell.)
Leave the list alone for a day. Try not to look at it, and certainly don't
revise it in any way. The following day, sit down and look at your list. How
many of the items on it are feasible? Can you see your way to accomplishing any
of it? Did anything come out of the list that you hadn't actually really thought
of until you wrote it down in a hurried attempt to get to 100 items in the time
limit? Any surprises in there?
The point of this exercise is not to create a giant and outlandish "to-do"
list that never gets ticked off. Instead, it is simply to open up your mind to
the idea that anything is possible, and to give you ideas that will help you to
become unstuck in life.
Personally, after feeling stuck and making out my list, I identified a few
ways to make positive changes in my life at the time; I joined Toastmasters
because an item I wrote down was to become a public speaker. I also eventually
started a blog to satisfy an inner wordsmith in me that has
blossomed into a career. And ultimately, the list helped lead me to the decision
to sell off everything I owned to live out my dreams of travel and adventure now.
And it all started with 20 minutes and 100 ways to change my life.