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Are you ready to take the steps necessary to thrive? Join us every episode as host Adam Gragg discusses what is holding us back and how to move forward with purpose, along the way developing healthy relationships and navigating life transitions while overcoming fear, stress and anxiety. Adam is a family therapist, mental health professional and life coach helping individuals and organizations find the transformational clarity that unleashes hope. Live the life you want, the legacy you decide.
Ep131
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] Welcome to episode 131 of the Decide Your Legacy podcast. Today's episode is called Make Every 15 Minutes Count. I'm your host, Adam Gragg. I have been a licensed mental health professional for 25 years, a family therapist, speaker, and coach. I help people find transformational clarity, the kind of [00:01:00] clarity they need to face their biggest fears and live their legacy.
I talk about stuff I struggle with myself, I don't have it all figured out, I am definitely a fellow traveler. So I get really frustrated with myself because I get distracted. Good is the enemy of the great. Writing this specific podcast. I thought of all kinds of other reasons why, how I could avoid doing so.
So I could have, and I wanted to prepare for speaking on Thursday, get ready for my clients tomorrow to work on another project that's due next week, anything to avoid. And what I've realized is that, Every 15 minutes counts. That's what we're talking about today. Every 15 minutes counts. We can waste 15 minutes or we can use it productively.
Are you seeing this in your life where you easily get consumed with something and it just destroys or steals 15 minutes out of your life? I bet you can see that if you look closely. So before we jump in into why and how you [00:02:00] can make every 15 minutes count, I want to share something uncomfortable that I did recently.
So I do this because nothing is more important to your mental health than facing your fears and nothing more damaging than playing it safe. I played frisbee golf with some friends on Saturday. I didn't want to, but I actually looked and felt that I had been neglecting my social interaction time and everything.
And so I decided to play. It was really fun. My friend, Nate, his son, Ethan, and then Nate's brother, Josh. Really cool. So this is the podcast that you do. You don't just listen to it. So that means you take an action doing something that is uncomfortable to start your engagement in this podcast, in this content.
So what's something significant. What's a way that you waste 15 minute chunks of time during your day? And what would you do with that time if you could have that time back? Even quantify it. How many 15 minute chunks of time do you waste during your week by worrying, by [00:03:00] procrastination, by perfectionism?
Write that down or speak it into your phone. I, in my life, have missed out on a lot of opportunities because of fear. And that's the way I define whether somebody is old or young. It's a mindset. Young people don't play it safe.
They're willing to grow and challenge themselves. Nothing to do with age. I believe it's a lot scarier in the future if you procrastinate. And if you don't do those scary things, 15 minute chunks of doing hard stuff in your life, err on the side of doing embarrassing, potentially spontaneous stuff in quick chunks of time.
It takes just something very small, like a 15 minute increment, just doing it. Where change and transformation can happen. And are you seeing this in your life? Where you don't, you procrastinate, you wait, and you lose the opportunity.
First of these three points I want to make about making every 15 minutes count is that transformations happen very quickly. I can work on a [00:04:00] project for just 15 minutes and I can notice some progress. Calling somebody for just 15 minutes can make a connection. Reading something for just 15 minutes can help me professionally.
A mindset shift happens very quickly. In fact, when I made the breakthrough of noticing that 7 Up Bottles would remind me of just making it a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10, letting go, that was a very quick mindset shift. It was in a moment that it actually happened. 15 minutes, every 15 minutes counts. I like to ask clients questions.
As you know, I have this activity or often come prepared to interactions with clients with a specific question in mind. It can take 15 minutes. Very quick. I know that one of the favorite questions I have to ask people is very basic, but they come to me with a struggle in an area.
They want to improve their relationships or their career or their financial condition, or they want to stop being afraid, improve relationships with their grown kids. And I'll tell them, you know, if you were giving advice to a really good friend, what advice would you give them [00:05:00] in this situation?
I mean, they won't ask me for advice, but I'm asking them what advice they would give, and they're starting to externalize the problem with that question. And I've seen hundreds of breakthroughs with the externalization of a question. When you ask it based on their problem, they're starting to see it's outside of them, and if they had a really good friend that had the same exact problem, they'd give them their best advice, and I would tell them, if you knew all the same details about the situation, but it's your friend, what would you tell them to do?
And they will rattle some things off. I'll even say, well, what three things would you tell them to do? And they'll have some very quick answers to that issue. And it takes less than 15 minutes, but you come in and you don't overestimate. We can easily say it's going to take a lot of time and effort and work to make a breakthrough.
When I don't believe that, I believe the great questions that prompt people to gain insight are going to make a huge breakthrough. Every 15 minute increments going to help them make a big breakthrough as they add up together. People want to make a big health breakthrough. Every 15 minutes. [00:06:00] And I will start something often just knowing, and to find this is really helpful, if I just know I have 15 minutes to engage in something, well that's significant.
That is enough. So this morning I knew that I had two 15 minute blocks to get a workout in, so I went to the gym and I was there for 30 minutes. It was great. I was really glad I went. I was wanting to procrastinate, but I decided because I broke it down to say this counts. This is a big deal.
This can actually have a big impact on my life. Another great question that I find people can answer in 15 minutes. I mean, that makes a trade that can make a transformation is a question that I heard once in a sermon actually, and it was what cause makes you angry that you're willing to stand up for this cause you'd willing to be embarrassed.
And that helped me to think about my life and my career and my passions, but a very quick type interaction. 15 minute increments. So something to think about as you go. So that's the first thing. Transformations happen quickly. If you recognize that, it's going to make each of those small chunks of time incredibly more [00:07:00] valuable than maybe they are today.
Makes a big difference. Another crucial thing to recognize that makes every 15 minutes counts is that you'll start seeing progress as you break it down. I can get overwhelmed easily with projects. You know, in fact, this course that I've been filming for the last six months, called, it's called Shatterproof Yourself, Seven Small Steps to a Giant Leap in Your Mental Health.
I remember going into the studio thinking I was going to knock this thing out in one day. I can say I'm going to achieve an incredible amount of productivity in a day, or I can achieve nothing over a very long period of time.
What I've found is that I have to break it down. If I break it down, then I can start to see my progress as I cross things off my list. I mean, I'm assessing my progress based on where I was yesterday. And then what steps have I taken towards my goal, which my big goal, I have five sections filmed and launched of Shatterproof Yourself, but there's eight sections.
So five are done. I got one, two, three. Well, no, I got four more. There's nine sections. I got four more. So introduction and [00:08:00] then a closing section. So I got four more done, but I'm over halfway there and it's really inspiring. I love it now. I'm getting excited about it. I'm loving the content more and more.
I mean, I've loved it for a long time, but it's a lot of work. I can't do it unless I break it down. The smallest increment that I look at when I prepare. For filming this and producing this has been a 15 minute increment. Can I put 15 minutes into preparing for it or practicing speaking or working on how I will film it or working on how to create the PowerPoint slides?
That's what matters to me. That's a big deal. I'm able to focus on, as I break it down into smaller 15 minute chunks, the Opportunity rather than the obstacle. That obstacle of getting this thing launched and starting to get it out to people is, it's a huge big production, but the opportunity, if I, if I break it down, I see the opportunity and the progress I'm actually making.
Work on it a little bit every day. The next day I'm making more progress. When I'm anxious, I'm measuring it forward. When I'm anxious, I'm looking at where I want to be and how far I have to go. That's the obstacle. When I'm encouraged and excited, I'm [00:09:00] looking at how far I came based on where I was yesterday.
Fifteen minutes of progress in all seven different life areas. That's the way I like to break it down. The seven different life areas that are represented by the Decide Your Legacy tree, the spiritual area, which a 15 minute action you can take is just go on a walk and notice nature.
Really cool, really exciting. 15 minute action you can take in the social and fun area is just take 15 minutes to laugh. That's a great thing. It's great for your soul. 15 minutes in your career, just reading and researching on something that you want to learn.
15 minutes when it comes to your health can be going to the gym for just 15 minutes. 15 minutes with your family, a 15 minute phone call. Can make a big difference. 15 minutes intellectually can be just taking a break to read for 15 minutes. I love it. And I have this worksheet that you can get on the Decide Your Legacy app when you look at Shatterproof Yourself Lite or you check it out, the video.
You can download in the bonus section. There's this worksheet called [00:10:00] Daily Action, and it breaks down an entire week with the daily five and five. And then at the end of the day, it's a three and three, and then you have. You can shade in, and on the app or sorry, on the worksheet, it's just a little dot that you check off.
Basically, you fill in electronically and it's when you've done something to invest 15 minutes into this area, all seven of these areas, then you get this feeling of satisfaction. You've made some progress and that's why you want to do this. So you get the feeling that you've made some progress. So you want to check out the app, download it.
It's on iOS, Apple, and it's. Going to be on Google Android version very soon, hopefully in the next week or two. We've been working on that for a while. It's a little bit delayed, but it's a lot of work to make an app. It's taken some time, but I'm so excited about it. Check that out. You want to check out also episode number 129 of the Decide Your Legacy podcast.
That's on focusing on the opportunity over the obstacle. Opportunity versus obstacle. [00:11:00] That's a great podcast episode. I feel like it's super inspiring to me because it's a concept that when I realized and I learned that you want to measure your progress backwards from where you were, that made a big difference.
That was a 15 minute breakthrough right there for me to just understand that concept. And it was super encouraging. And it was from a book that I listened to called The Gap or The Gain by Dan Sullivan and very encouraging book as well. So. Obstacle versus opportunity. It's a little bit different the way I describe it, but it's the same type of concept, very inspirational.
Measure your progress backwards. Don't measure it forwards. That'll make you discouraged. So first of all, you want to go ahead. And I think a great thing you can do to work on this is to start just looking at your life and saying like, how can I invest 15 minutes into this area?
and start that process and start recognizing the progress that you're making. It's going to decrease your stress. It's going to decrease your discouragement. Really, it's going to make you a nicer person. I find that, that [00:12:00] people who are always like short of their goal and they recognize how far they have to go to get there, they become very discouraging bosses, very discouraging friends and parents.
They're often focused on what is wrong or what is not going right, they're not really great at pointing out the progress that other people make. And the main reason they do that is because they don't recognize the progress in their own life. And because you don't, if you don't recognize the progress in your own life, you're going to be a very difficult person for other people to be around.
So if you start recognizing each of these 15 minute, increments of progress, then you're going to be a much friendlier, more engaging, more encouraging, more hopeful, just somebody that's going to make friends a lot easier and someone that's going to have people want to work for them. Really there'll be much more readily wanting to come to work and be your employee because they see how much encouragement you're going to convey, not the lack, not the obstacle.
So a great thing to [00:13:00] do is to focus on those areas of progress consistently, and this will help. So if you found this episode helpful, I'd Some ways that you can work on your mental health is by checking out Shatterproof Yourself Light. I would recommend you engage the app or you sign up at the link.
You're going to get the video and you can download the worksheet and this is going to walk you through seven steps to a giant leap in your mental health. Things you can start engaging in today to implement into your life. It's a light version. It's 30 minutes. You get to fill out the worksheets and you get to check out the content.
There's that bonus daily action video and worksheet as well. It's a real solution to challenges you may be having with mental health. And it's going to be a refresher course for many of you. Go through it with your team, share it with your family. It's free. Very excited about this content. The third crucial thing to recognize regarding making progress in 15 minute increments is that when you do this and you focus on [00:14:00] these 15 minute investments in your life in all seven different life areas, it's going to lead to a sense of balance in your life.
You may struggle with feeling out of balance. I mean, there's this fallacy out there that we don't need balance, that people that are healthy, they actually go to extremes. They invest all this time and energy into one part of their life and they shift to another part of their life. And I'm sure that happens.
I know that happens. I know people cram for their finals and they feel like, well, they still got A's and okay, I must've learned just as much. But I don't find that people do well long term unless they're investing into all the different areas of their life. Consistently, I know there's people that will fight me on that, but you know, I've been doing this in the mental health field for 25 years.
I'm an observer. I watch how people live. I don't see people neglecting their family and their health and their career and their spiritual life for a long extended period of time and then doing very well. It's going to add up and catch up to them. And what happens when you look at these 15 minute increments saying that I'm going to put at least 15 minutes in each area of my life, all seven [00:15:00] areas, it's going to show you a pattern as you fill out the daily action worksheet,
so you can get Shatterproof Yourself light and get this daily action worksheet. You're going to start seeing that I'm neglecting one of those areas or two of those areas of my life. And then you'll know when you're off base, you'll recognize you want to put more energy into one of those areas.
If you would neglect those areas, you're going to see a pattern on this worksheet that you're not shading in the box in social and fun or spiritual or intellectual development, and that's going to cause an issue. I know for me over the last year, I've had seasons where I've recognized by doing this activity, which is a daily activity for me, I've recognized that I've been neglecting my intellectual development and not reading, not putting at least 15 minutes of reading in a day for me makes a difference.
And then I recognize that pattern. I start to put energy into that area. And it's not just. I wait till the end of the week and I read for an hour and 45 minutes. No, I want to make this a consistent part of my life. And then I recognize that I can wake up tomorrow and read or start reading more before I go to bed.[00:16:00]
It shows me, as I look at these patterns of neglect, where I want to say yes and where I want to say no. It shows me that, like I said at the beginning of this episode, that I needed to say yes and wanted to say yes to more social and fun. Which Frisbee golf was fun. I lost, but I mean, that was cool. It was still fun.
I shot like 12 over par. And one of my buddies had a birdie, Nate, and another guy his brother almost had a birdie. Needed to put some Find some ways to get some power on my throws. So in summary, benefits, great benefits of making every 15 minutes count is transformations happen in small chunks.
You're breaking it down, creating opportunities for these transformations to occur because you're not neglecting your life in those different seven different life areas. You're going to start seeing progress because they're 15 minute chunks of progress, inspiring stuff. You're going to also recognize where you're out of balance.
Which is the third [00:17:00] reason to break things down into 15 minute chunks. You'll recognize that you are neglecting a part of your life because it's in smaller increments where you're going to see patterns in your life. Crucial stuff. So again, hit the link to Shatterproof Yourself, Light. This is a 30 minute video and worksheet you're going to fill out and it's going to give you actionable tools, things that you can do now in 15 minute chunks to improve your mental health in seven different areas of your life.
Seven steps. to getting better mental health in your life. Check it out there, actionable content as well. So remember insight, what you're gaining today is 20 percent of transformational change and action is 80%. You're going to have that insight, that aha moment, But then you apply it and you learn and you grow.
When we fail, when we do it, failure is a part of growth. Failure is how we learn. Failure is a positive thing to me. That just means that it didn't go as expected. And in that sense, you're always failing, at least in some capacity. It's never perfect. An okay [00:18:00] plan that you act on is a hundred times, a thousand times better even, than a great plan that you sit on.
What idea resonates most with you today? By the end of the day today, apply it and then take action. And then also to really make, make it stick, teach it to someone else. I'll sign off the way I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone.
You decide your legacy, nobody else. I appreciate you greatly, and I'll see you next time.