{"id":77185,"date":"2019-12-16T14:25:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-16T22:25:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/duello.tv\/?p=77185"},"modified":"2019-12-16T14:25:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-16T22:25:49","slug":"one-mindful-breath-setting-a-minimum-viable-commitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/one-mindful-breath-setting-a-minimum-viable-commitment\/","title":{"rendered":"One Mindful Breath: Setting a Minimum Viable Commitment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes the most you can muster is a single mindful breath.<br \/>\nAnd sometimes that&#8217;s all the meditation you need.<br \/>\nOne set of crunches.<br \/>\nOne line on your manuscript.<br \/>\nOne walk around the block.<br \/>\nWe often overestimate what we can accomplish in one day, while we underestimate what we can accomplish in five years if we were to start taking small steps now.<br \/>\nSet an intention to take a small meaningful step today.<br \/>\nWhat&#8217;s your minimum viable commitment? What&#8217;s the thing you can start doing each day, or each week, that you&#8217;re sure to accomplish and can help you get the momentum going in the direction you want?<br \/>\nI built a meditation practice from a one breath commitment, and a martial arts practice from five minutes per day. These are both activities that have transformed my mind and body in the years that I have been doing them.<br \/>\nWhat I marvel at most is how difficult even a small commitment can feel.<br \/>\nWhen we take away all of the excuses of time, then we&#8217;re faced with our real blocks. In facing them we get to do our real work.<br \/>\nFor me I encounter my perfectionist and the part of me that always asks if I&#8217;m really doing enough. The part of me that doesn&#8217;t allow me to celebrate or take pride in the small steps. It&#8217;s that journey, the journey of being gentle with myself, that I am exploring through martial arts and meditation and the discipline that surrounds their practice.<br \/>\nMy practice is a reflection on being enough, doing enough, and allowing my journey to be my own. Not a comparison to others or an artificial standard.<br \/>\nThe more I confront and unravel that the more joy I take in the doing.<br \/>\nAnd I&#8217;ve never changed from that small commitment, though my discipline has expanded greatly. I might practice for four hours or meditate three times. What I&#8217;m capable of has greatly expanded. But on some days five minutes and one breath is still enough.<br \/>\nMinimum viable commitment. Because the difference between something and nothing is infinite.<br \/>\n<em>Devon<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We often overestimate what we can accomplish in one day, while we underestimate what we can accomplish in five years if we were to start taking small steps now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":77187,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-77185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-training"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathofthesword.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}