Allyson Lewis - The 7 Minute Solution: Creating a Life with Meaning 7 Minutes at a Time

PRAISE FOR THE 7 MINUTE SOLUTION

Lewiss refreshingly straightforward, plain-talk approach makes for an uplifting readit will change the way you live. Heres how to work better and smarter, how to get more out of less; most important, heres how to take the right small steps to make the big changes that get life right.

DAVID BACH , author of The Automatic Millionaire

Life is a series of minutes. Allyson Lewis makes it clear that creating a meaningful life is more than possible, it is a deliberate choice. The 7 Minute Solution will encourage and challenge you to embrace your purpose and embrace a life with meaning.

LAURIE BETH JONES, author of The Path and Jesus CEO, business coach, and spiritreneur

This book is for the time starved, development driven. If you are low on time and high on talent, you will want to read The 7 Minute Solution .

JASON WOMACK, author of Your Best Just Got Better

Allyson Lewiss inspiring new book paves the way to your new life with her smart advice and memorable tips you can put into action immediately. You can change your life, and The 7 Minute Solution shows you how!

DR. JOANN DAHLKOETTER, author of Your Performing Edge

The 7 Minute Solution is a LIFE CHANGER! What makes this book so powerful is a perfect blend of connecting your heart and soul to your daily and life goals, and then providing you with the tools to actually implement life-changing strategies on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

DAVE SAVAGE, founder and CEO of Mortgage Coach

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Copyright 2012 by Allyson Lewis

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First Atria Paperback edition January 2013

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The Library of Congress has cataloged the Free Press hardcover edition as follows:

Lewis, Allyson. The 7 minute solution : creating a life with meaning 7 minutes at a time / by Allyson Lewis. p. cm. (hbk. : alk. paper)

1. Time management. 2. Self-management (Psychology) 3. Values. 4. Self-actualization (Psychology) 5. Self-realization.

I. Title. II. Title: Seven minute solution.

BF637.T5L49 2012 158.1dc23 2011039471

ISBN 978-1-4516-2822-7

ISBN 978-1-4516-2823-4 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-4516-2824-1 (ebook)

To
My children
Abby & J

The Need for the 7 Minute Solution

THE 7 MINUTE SOLUTION offers strategies to help you prioritize, organize, and simplify your life for greater meaning and productivity.

Using the 7 Minute tools, ideas, checklists, processes, and repeatable systems you will be able to use your time more effectively to energize yourself, to inspire yourself, to connect with the self you want to be, and to accomplish more in the next ninety days than you ever have before.

The 7 Minute Solution is a simple practice. You will learn to take small, manageable steps every day that allow you to make macro changes at micro levels. You can create a great magnitude of changes in your life through this daily process.

The 7 Minute Solution has two basic principles:

Change happens in an Instant. It happens the moment you DECIDE to change.

You must choose to take tiny, positive, strategic steps forward EVERY DAY.

Today you are heading in one direction. And then something happens. You realize you are faced with a choice. You can choose to remain the same or you can choose to take one tiny new step forward.

The 7 Minute Solution is about deciding to change and choosing to take one more step toward a more meaningful life every day.

Welcome to the 7 Minute Community.

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE of one of the most popular 7 Minute tools, called the Daily Progress Report. This single time-management tool has changed my life. This is just one of a multitude of revolutionary ideas you will find in this book.

Subscribe to the Member Tools section of www.The7MinuteLife.com for access to free downloads of this and all of our 7 Minute tools, forms, and checklists.

For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.

PROVERBS 23:7

KING JAMES VERSION

THOUSANDS OF YEARS AGO, the wise King Solomon wrote, For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he. In the Middle Ages, scientists and philosophers believed that the soul resided in the human heart. The idea made sense: when we are sad, our heart aches; when we are physically or emotionally energized, our heart pounds.

During a recent sermon, my pastor, Dan Reeves, illustrated the connections among our thoughts, our hearts, and our lives. As he took the stage that Sunday morning, the familiar sound of a human heartbeat filled the darkened auditorium.

Boom-boom... boom-boom.

A video of a beating human heart appeared on the overhead screen.

Boom-boom... boom-boom.

The human heart is designed to pump the perfect amount of blood needed to meet the exact demands of your body at the exact time, Reeves said. When resting, your heart pumps slowly. When exercising, your heart rate increases to the perfect level to meet your needs. You are not consciously thinking, Id better make my heart beat. Rather, your heart changes its output based on the demands you put upon it at any given time. Like your heart, your life is ready to deliver exactly what you ask of it.

With the rhythmic heartbeat in the background, he asked a question I hope youll answer now: What will you ask of your life?

What a powerful point, Life is ready to deliver exactly what you ask of it, what will you ask of it? In this book, I will encourage you to look deeply at your life. Do you know what you really want most out of life? How would your life be different if you made the best use of your mind? Your nutrition? Your sleep? Your learning? Your time?

If you want a more meaningful life, are you asking for your life to deliver its very best?

Reeves continued his sermon by picking up a large rock that sat next to the pulpit. The dirty mass measured about twenty-four inches wide, fifteen inches across, and four inches high. It had to weigh almost thirty pounds. As he held the rock, he described the difficulty hed had carrying it into the building. Unable to hold it and open the door at the same time, hed had to put down the rock, open the door and brace it with his foot, bend over, pick up the rock, place his back against the door, and maneuver his way inside. From there, he had carried the rock about a hundred yards, wrestling with yet another door. Finally, sweating with exertion, he had placed the boulder on the stage, taking care not to damage the wooden floor.