How to Add Energy and Passion to Your Life in 20 Minutes a Day

You’re busy, your schedule is packed, and you have almost no free time. Your energy levels are low, and the thought of living with more passion or pursing a dream seems completely outside the realm of possibility. Sure, it sounds great, but have no idea how to make it happen in your hectic life.

You probably have some ideas about what it would look like for you to live with more energy or to add some passion to your life, but you can’t imagine how you’d make it work. Your schedule is too busy. You have too many responsibilities. You just can’t picture it actually working out.

But what if it didn’t require a lot of time. What if you could get started and begin moving toward adding more energy to your life or living with more passion, by focusing on it for just 20 minutes a day? What if you could take the first steps toward a more satisfying life for yourself, without ditching your responsibilities or letting down the people who depend on you?

(This article is part of our Create More Energy and Passion series. You can read the other articles here.)

I believe that you can do this, regardless of your schedule, your job, or your family situation, simply by devoting 20 minutes a day to it.

No, that’s not a lot of time. And no, you won’t make rapid progress doing it that way. But you will make progress. You’ll start, and you’ll begin to move forward, and you’ll slowly begin to figure things out.

And as you do, you’ll figure out ways to devote a bit more time to the things that increase your energy or inspire passion within you. You’ll see how important it is to you and how much it enhances your life. And as you do, you’ll begin to make changes – to your schedule, to the way you use time, and to the things you commit to – in order to free up more time for creating the life you really want.

And a simple way to begin is by devoting just 20 minutes a day to it, 6 days a week.

That’s 20 minutes a day in which you could –

• Draw, write or paint
• Work on a craft
• Exercise
• Take a walk
• Plan healthy meals for the week
• Prep healthy food
• Get in touch with your body and learn what makes it feel good
• Dance
• Talk to your husband
• Start a blog
• Research the business you want to start
• Stretch
• Sit quietly and breathe deeply
• Or anything else you’ve been wanting to do, anything that would begin to infuse energy or passion into your life

Now, let’s be honest – can you learn to paint or start a business or adopt a healthy diet in just 20 minutes a day? No, not entirely. But you can start. And you can make progress. And you can gain some momentum.

And as you gain that momentum and your energy and passion build, you’ll start to see things you could do that would enable you to devote a little bit more time to living with passion. And then a little bit more.

For example, you might decide to let something go that you’ve realized isn’t as important to you as being able to feel more energetic or live with more passion.

For example, you might be like my friend Julie, who wants to write a book on a topic that’s near and dear to her heart. But, like you and me, she struggles to find the time. So, she decided to make some changes and let go of some things that take up a great deal of her time. One of them is an online group that she’s managed for a couple of years. The group provides people with helpful resources, and it aligns with the things she’s interested in. But, it takes up a LOT of her limited time and energy.

With a fair amount of difficulty, she decided to step away from the group. Some people weren’t happy with her, but I applaud her. I think it takes real courage to let go of something that’s good in order to make time and space in your life for something that’s even better.

What about you? What could you change or let go, in order to devote just 20 minutes each day to living with more passion? For most of us, making that change probably isn’t as difficult as we think. In fact, deciding to forgo one show on Netflix or one round of checking Facebook or Instagram would easily create 20 (or even 30) minutes that we could use for something more productive, something that would allow us to take a small step toward living with more passion.

(At some point, if you decide to free up more than 20 minutes, you may need to consider making a change to your family’s schedule or saying “no” to something you don’t really want to do.)

And over time, those small steps will become bigger steps, until you suddenly find that you’ve made time and space in your life for something you love, something that makes you feel alive and fills you with energy.

Are you willing to give it a try?

If so, here’s what I encourage you to do –

• Decide – Determine that you’re going to devote 20 minutes a day, 6 days a week, for the next 2 weeks, to something you really want to do.
• Choose – Pick something that you know will energize you, will take you back to something you love but have lost, or will allow you to pursue a passion or dream.
• Schedule – Make this a “must do” on your calendar, and don’t leave it to chance. Instead, figure out now how and where you’ll make time for it on 6 of the next 7 days.
• Continue – At the end of the week, plan how to make time for it the next week.
• Evaluate – After two weeks, take a few minutes to think about how you feel and to look at what you’ve been able to do. Make any changes you need to make, then keep going – with the goal of adding energy to your life or living with more passion, even in the middle of a busy or even mundane time of your life.

Here’s my prediction – after two weeks you’ll feel more energetic and/or you’ll be feeling the stirrings of a passion that’s been missing from your life. Or maybe you’ll just feel happier, because you’re making time for something that’s been missing in your life. Either way, the outcome is likely to be good. And since the investment is small, what do you have to lose?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

(This article was also published on Medium.)