The Five Minute Rule

Yesterday I was having a hard time getting to a mental place where I was able to do some of the things I needed to do.

It was a rainy and gray day here in Connecticut, and that is the hardest kind of weather for me to find motivation.

When that kind of weather falls on a Sunday, I want to be curled up in a ball in my bed.

I’m going through some tough stuff right now, and what I really wanted to do was…

nothing.

I wanted to lock myself in my room, stay in pajamas, binge watch Homeland, and interact with nobody.

It would have felt great to do that in the moment. It would have been immediate relief from everything that is going on in my life right now.

But it wouldn’t have helped me out today or next week or next month.

Cocooning myself in my room, justifying my lack of motivation to do anything and rationalizing a whole boatload of self pity was very appealing.

But I know better.

And I thought about the philosophy the head coach of the swim team I coached with for the last two years.

He coaches the high school aged swimmers.

Kids at this age are focused on times and making cuts for higher level competition, and there are lots of expectations placed on swims at meets.

And this results in lots of emotion — both positive and negative.

The head swim coach has what he calls The Five Minute Rule at swim meets.

You get five minutes of celebrating or five minutes of disappointment/anger/sadness after a swim.

After five minutes it’s time for you to rein it in.

We should all celebrate our successes. But when you outwardly celebrate for too long, you are being kind of a tool.

Conversely, disappointment sucks. And it’s okay to feel sad, to cry, and to be upset.

But not forever.

At most swim meets you have three or four swims, and if you have one bad swim, you can’t let it turn into four bad swims because you couldn’t get your shit together.

Yesterday I thought about the head swim coach and the five minute rule when I wanted to spend the whole day wallowing in the fucking bullshit of my life.

But I didn’t.

I hopped on the elliptical.

I sweated some stuff out.

I checked in on Facebook with my Thrive membership, shared what was going on, got it out of my system, and then moved on.

I took a shower, pulled myself (mostly) out of my funk, and changed the direction of my day.

As we navigate the next few weeks (and the rest of our lives), remember this five minute rule, especially when you are confronted with day-to-day stuff that you often let derail you.

Allow yourself a few minutes to celebrate or be disappointed.

And then get your shit together, snap yourself out of it, and keep moving forward.

How do you move forward?

Get up off your butt.

Take a walk. Even if it’s only from your front door to your mailbox.

Drink a glass of water.

Take a shower.

Write down three things you will do in the next 30 minutes.

Throw a load of laundry in the washer.

Read a book.

Work on a puzzle.

Do anything that shifts the direction of your brain.

Because the only place spending more than five minutes on feeling sorry for yourself is going to bring you is even farther away from the place that you really want to be.