If you’re a Strictly fan you can’t tell me you didn’t say that title in the voice of former judge Len Goodman!

Today’s blog is all about the number seven.

All it takes is seven minutes. Yep, you heard it right, seven minutes.

Takes seven minutes for what? I hear you ask.

Well, sometimes we put off doing things that are good for us, because we think we haven’t got time.

“I haven’t got an hour spare to go swimming or go to the gym.”
“I haven’t got time to read a book.”
“I haven’t got a time to connect with that person and send them a message or give them a call.”
“I haven’t got time for me.”

When we tell ourselves we haven’t got time, we’re actually putting ourselves to a bottom of a list.

We’re telling ourselves we don’t care about ourselves, we don’t show ourselves self-compassion, we don’t show ourselves self-kindness.

What does that mean? It means we’re not prioritising ourselves. We think that we have to do everything in one big chunk of time for it to be beneficial, but the reality is we don’t need that. We only need short pockets of time we can fit into our daily routines, which can become so effective for our minds and bodies.

So why not try seven minutes? I found seven minutes to be a really good pocket of time; a little bit more than five, so we think we’re doing that little bit extra, but not as much as 10 so we don’t feel it’s cutting into our day.

What you will find is when you engage yourself in something for seven minutes, you can get into that state of flow so time goes quickly and it leaves you wanting to do more… and there’s the key – we want to do more.

When we’re left feeling we want to do more, that inspires us to actually take that next step and do it; take that next bit of action.

I want to encourage you to think about some things you can do for just seven minutes. Maybe start your day reading for seven minutes. Seven minutes of stretching, seven minutes of yoga. Walk around the block, take the dog for a walk – even if you haven’t got a dog! Just pretend and use your imagination as motivation and walk around the block for seven minutes. Seven minutes of breathing exercises, seven minutes of lying on the floor doing absolutely nothing.

Just take that seven minutes and use it to write, read, move, sing, dance around your kitchen, just anything for seven minutes.

Set your timer and then get strict with stopping after seven minutes and see how you feel. Are you ready for more?

Over time of consistently implementing that seven minutes you will likely find that you’ll have several pockets of seven minutes during the day that add up to way more than one hour.

You know, that one hour you said you didn’t have time for!

So go on, give it a try.

Much love
Tabby x