Twelve Minutes Quietly Changing Lives
First published on March 3, 2021
The blank page. Nothing written. No clear idea of what will be written. And yet, four and a half years into this practice, I know that something will end up written.
It's different to how it was when it first started, though. Writing on the train has some advantages. When the train starts moving, you know the timer has started. Now that I no longer get the train, I get to start the timer. And one way to avoid filling the page is by not pressing start.
And we don't want that.
We don't want that because we never know which piece of ourselves that we share in the world will have the impact, large or small, that will define us. We don't know which small (or large) thing we make will touch someone else in a way that matters.
And we don't know which precise combination of stimuli, present by chance and by design in a particular moment, will create something that is truly magical, will create our best work.
I didn't know, 18 months ago, when Seth Godin's Akimbo team asked for people to nominate themselves to run a workshop at a festival for the alumni from Akimbo's many courses, what ripples might follow. Taking a lesson from Godin's work, I picked myself. I ran a workshop, based on this practice, called 'How To Write A Book In 12 Minutes'. I had, in hand at that point and basically ready for publication, a book based on this practice (Where, you might ask, is that book? And that's a good question.). Almost 100 people came to the workshop, and some of those people became a writing group which ran for a year.
Today, I got a beautiful message from Karena de Souza, highlighting the moments and people that had provided the framework and inspiration that helped her complete her book, Contours of Courageous Parenting: Tilting Towards Better Decisions, which came out today. Karena was present at that workshop and was part of the writing group. (Congratulations, Karena - your book beat mine out!)
But I didn't know that when I started. I just had an inkling that I had something interesting to share. I just had a small flash that there was something about this 12-minute practice that might help people.
Sit down. Start a timer. Write. Stop the timer. Proof read. Post.
And quietly, over four and a half years of me doing that, I have changed. And quietly, mostly a few people at a time, these small pieces of work I have made have touched other people's lives.
And then more loudly, 18 months ago, the practice touched 100 more people's lives, including Karena's. But I don't know half the stories. And that's not why I set out to write these pieces.
I set out to do it because I was following my Resistance, believing Steven Pressfield when he explaiend that the places we feel the greatest Resistance are the most important to our soul's evolution. I did it because I knew I didn't want to listen to my fear any more. I wanted to make something. I wanted to share myself with the world. And so I started. And then at each moment of choice, I decided to carry on.
Quietly changing lives.
Another member of that writing group, David Reynolds, wrote to me today, after Karena's announcement, saying that I would be getting a nod in his (soon to be published) book, and suggesting a title for me to write to: Twelve Minutes Quietly Changing Lives.
I almost didn't write to it. It didn't feel right. Then I sat, with the blank page, and this piece emerged. And it turns out it is a piece about that.
And it's a beautiful sentence: Twelve Minutes Quietly Changing Lives. It speaks to me and my experience of practising creatively in this way. And it speaks to what is possible for you. If you create the time, even just 12 minutes. If you choose that you will spend 12 minutes each week (or each day, or even each month) making something. If you just put your mind to it, you can choose to spend 12 minutes quietly changing lives.
And what a gift that possibility is.