When people look back on their lives, they don’t, in general, regret what they have done. Instead, they regret what they haven’t done. Bronnie Ware, an Australian palliative care nurse, recorded the top five regrets of the dying. These were (Steiner, 2012):
1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
"This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over […] it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it."
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
"They missed their children's youth and their partner's companionship [and] spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence."
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
"Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. They settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming."
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
"Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years."
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
"This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content, when deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again."
I make no apology for raising this sombre issue. I don’t want you to reach the end of your life – hopefully many, many years in the future – and look back and say, “I wish I had…”
10 minutes each day is where you start.
The 1000 Minutes Principle notes that every day you are awake for around 1000 minutes. This means that 10 minutes is 1% of your Waking Day.
Visualising your day in this new way is incredibly powerful. With the 1000 Minutes Principle and Learned Relentlessness you can roll together numerous ten minute blocks to achieve projects and dreams for which you thought there would never be the time.
Let’s be clear: the 1000 Minutes Principle is not about making you slightly more efficient in the workplace or slightly more likely to invite an old friend over for dinner. It is about changing your life. It is about re-evaluating your time and prioritising what matters most to you. It is about changing your direction and then looking back in years to come and having no regrets.
The thing about time is that it doesn’t hang about. Once you are in a routine – or perhaps even a rut – it can take years to climb out. We continue in our lives with dreams and aspirations, with things that we will one day achieve, and before we know it a decade has passed. Enough! The time to make that change is now.
A good place to start is with a 1% Plan.
The 1% Plan should be the first thing you do each day. Nothing should distract you from it and you will set yourself up for the day ahead. It should take you just 10 minutes to complete – 1% of your Waking Day. If you want to spend longer on it, then do. If it feels valuable, it’s valuable.
Start with writing about what is on your mind. It doesn’t matter how you do this: it could be sentences or bullet points or mind maps or pictures. Importantly, you must look forward. Do not dwell on the past and try to be positive.
At the end of your 1% Plan you will set yourself a 1% Priority Action. This is the one thing you will do that day without fail. It is best when your 1% Priority Action is specific. On some days it may be related to a specific project. On other days it may be to clear some life laundry: to make a particular telephone call or pay that bill or research something or buy someone a present.
Some days you may not achieve your 1% Priority Action. If not, write it down again for the following day. Be relentless.
You may wish to use my template for a 1% Plan. I will write more about this technique soon to explain how to get the best from it.
You might like to think of your dreams as tiny specks of life washing up and down over the rocks on a beach. They could wash up and down forever… but if they get a hold in a tiny crack then they can wedge themselves in. They can become anchored and then, before you know it, they can spread and grow and flourish. Soon a whole colony of life grows on the rocks. Other life flocks to it and a whole new ecosystem blooms.
That little crack in the rock is 10 minutes of each day – just 1% of your Waking Day each day that can change your life.
No regrets.
Tom Evershed 
Leave a comment