As humans we always feel the pull of wanting more. We want progress. We want our lives to be better tomorrow than they are today. We try to set up our lives in ways that will move us in a positive direction. But it is hard. There are days that just don’t work out how we want. Sometimes we find that we are further away than we started.

How can we easily keep on track?

By doing the minimum.

I know, it seems crazy, but if you commit to setting a minimum standard of what you will work on and complete just the minimum everyday you will be amazed at how much progress you will make in a few months, and you wont even recognize yourself in 10 years.

For example, say you have decided to run 5 minutes everyday. That’s not too hard. Some days you will run for 5 minutes and only 5 minutes. But most of the time you will run for far longer and really move toward your goal.

Or if writing is more your thing, write one paragraph every day. The minimum. It will probably only take you 4 minutes. Then, if you really don’t want to continue then just be done. You will find that most days you will write way more, maybe even pages.

Doing the minimum gets you over the hump of getting going, which we all know is the hardest part. If you can just get going you can usually find your self doing much more.

This is what I call the minimum principle and you dont even have to feel bad for not going above and beyond. Just do the minimum everyday and watch yourself accomplish more than you ever imagined.

Just do the minimum and never stop.