The 10-minute rule

The 10-minute rule is a rule that has personally helped me achieve from small to big goals without giving up; I learned it from Will Smith, a famous acquaintance who explains it with a story that according to him happened to him as a child.

Will Smith tells that one day when he was a child his dad went crazy and decided to tear down the wall in front of the business because he wanted a new one, and then his father approached him and his brother and told them: -you are going to build this new wall, which was 10 meters long by 5 meters high, adding that they had to make a hole 2 meters deep for the foundation and that between him and his brother every day coming back from school they had to mix cement and lay bricks. At that moment, Will told himself that they would never finish, that the store would be missing a wall forever. However, day after day they after school mixed the cement and lay the bricks, every day. Finally, a year and a half later, they laid the last brick. That day their dad came in and hugged one on each side and told them "I never want to hear again that they can't accomplish something"

According to Will Smith, no project is too daunting, nothing is too big to accomplish. He says when you want to build the great wall you don't focus on saying "I want to make the biggest and the strongest wall is ever seen in mankind" but you focus on saying "for the next ten minutes I am going to lay this brick and there is not going to be a single brick that is better placed than mine" and you just dedicate yourself to do it, hour after hour every day until you have the wall you wanted.

He says that people are usually intimidated by the size of a big project and have a hard time taking the first step, but it's the same as laying bricks day by day, hour by hour, brick by brick. Just focusing on the project would be intimidating, and you may end up quitting, but if you just focus on small accomplishments you will end up getting your day's work done.

With this perspective, life becomes much less intimidating because instead of focusing on having a perfect life, you focus on having a good day, and beyond you focus on having a good morning, and beyond that, you focus on the task that you are doing at the moment.  Then you relax and your life becomes enjoyable, and the day comes when you have your wall.