The One Minute Reset

In this episode of Simple Shifts: Conversations to Fuel the Body, Mind and Soul, Martha and Peter discuss the One Minute Reset, a motivational technique designed to help individuals regain focus and direction in their personal and professional lives. Through a role-playing exercise, they explore the four key questions that guide this method, emphasizing the importance of commitment and setting boundaries to improve work-life balance.

The One Minute Reset Podcast

Video Transcript

Martha McKinnon (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Simple Shifts: Conversations to Fuel the Body, Mind and Soul. I am Martha McKinnon from the blog Simple Nourished Living and with me is my brother and partner, Peter Morrison.

Peter Morrison (00:13)
That’s me. Hello.

Martha McKinnon (00:15)
That’s you. Hi, how are ya?

Peter Morrison(00:17)
I’m good, how are you today?

Martha McKinnon (00:19)
I’m doing really well. I’m excited to have another talk with you.

Peter Morrison (00:25)
And today’s talk will be.

Martha McKinnon (00:27)
And today’s talk will be the one minute reset.

Peter Morrison (00:32)
So it’ll be a short talk.

Martha McKinnon (00:34)
It’ll be a short talk, one minute. We might extend it out a little bit, but the one minute reset is based on a concept called the one minute motivator that I learned years and years ago, back when I was training to be, I’m gonna date myself. I trained to be a Weight Watchers leader. Now Weight Watchers leaders are called coaches, but back then I was a leader and I went through training and I learned this one minute motivator technique, which is basically this series of four questions.

And it just it was like one of these moments of ah-has for me because I thought, my gosh, there are so many ways I’m going to be able to use this in my life—with others, with other Weight Watchers members, and with myself.

So shall we get into it?

Peter Morrison (01:16)
Let’s jump in.

Martha McKinnon (01:17)
Let’s jump in. So it’s basically just when you’re feeling unmotivated, when you’re trying to get yourself to maybe do something—trying to figure out where to get started, you’re kind of struggling, it’s just a series of four questions you can ask yourself to get yourself on track and moving forward.

And the first question is, what are you wanting to have happen? So maybe we should just, we could just kind of role play it and we could try it back and forth and see how it works when we try it out. So, Peter, tell me, what are you wanting to have happen?

Peter Morrison (01:50)
That’s a big question.

Martha McKinnon (01:52)
What are you wanting to have happen in relation to your health journey in relation to eating, managing your weight, exercising, something like that?

Peter Morrison (02:04)
Mmm. I’m wanting to have better sleep and more consistent energy throughout the day. I’m finding a little myself a little groggy like in the afternoons and I’m not really a napper. So I kind of want to work on my rest and energy levels.

Martha McKinnon (02:24)
So what I’m hearing you say is you’re feeling a little, your energy’s off and you know that it’s your sleep. You’re not sleeping as much as you need to. And so you’re wanting to sleep a little more. You’re wanting to sleep a little better. Is that right?

Peter Morrison (02:42)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Martha McKinnon (02:44)
So what needs to happen? So what do you think needs to happen in order for you to improve your sleep?

Peter Morrison (02:52)
Um, probably wrap up my day a little earlier than I’m currently doing and do it more consistently from day to day.

Martha McKinnon (03:04)
So what I’m hearing you say is your day can, you tend to extend your day longer than you should. And so part of getting the sleep you need is to choose a cutoff time for your day, or for your work, so that you can move on with the other things you need to get done. Is that right? So can you, can you do that? Can you commit to wrapping up your day?

Peter Morrison (03:28)
I haven’t been successful yet. I need to shuffle some things or be better with my time management. I’m sure I can.

Martha McKinnon (03:38)
So what do you think you could do? Like just, what do you think you could do like for a first step? What can you do? What could you get done? What could you maybe try out today?

Peter Morrison (03:50)
Set a hard stop for when I want to be done and when I’m not going to do any more work after that point.

Martha McKinnon (04:01)
So how could you really set that hard stop? What could you do?

Peter Morrison (04:08)
Turn off my computer.

Martha McKinnon (04:11)
Do you think you lose yourself in your computer? Do you think you might need to set like an alarm or a reminder or something?

Peter Morrison (04:18)
Yeah, my work tends to, what is that, expand to fill up the time that I give it.

Martha McKinnon (04:26)
Yeah, I think that’s a, I think you’re not alone in that. I think that’s a part of the human condition, yeah.

Peter Morrison (04:34)
So, like a problem I’m having is like dinner’s been creeping later and later and later and I’m trying to avoid that. I’m not being successful because well, I’ve just got one more thing to do and one more thing turns into five more things. And then I’m behind and then I’m scrambling. So I need to I need to stop regardless of where I am at a given time.

Martha McKinnon (05:06)
Right. So what I’m hearing you say is you need to create a hard stop for yourself. So can you do that? Can you set up a hard stop? Could you try it? Can you try it tonight?

Peter Morrison (05:21)
I have to try it.

Martha McKinnon (05:25)
Will you?

Peter Morrison (05:28)
Yes, I might be stressed and but yeah, I will.

Martha McKinnon (05:34)
All right. So you’re going to commit to setting a hard stop for yourself. All right.

Peter Morrison (05:42)
Yes, that’s 6 p.m.

Martha McKinnon (05:45)
There it is. At 6 PM, hard stop. Going to shut down the computer and just move on with the day.

Peter Morrison (05:48)
I should say no later than 6pm. Ideally it’d be before, but I’m giving myself the little grace period.

Martha McKinnon (05:55)
Okay, no later than 6 p.m. you’re going to turn off the computer and step away. There you go. So there it is. There’s the four questions, there’s the one minute motivator. There’s the four questions you just say, you ask yourself, what are you wanting to have happen? And then you say, okay, so what needs to happen in order for that to happen? Can you and will you? And you you did it. So good for you.

Peter Morrison (06:22)
Well, I set the intention to do it.

Martha McKinnon (06:24)
Yes, and now you said you would. You committed yourself. You said you would. And now it’s just all up to you. So I find this, again, this is something that I learned. It was a whole weekend of training that I went through. But this is the one thing that really stayed with me. It was the one that I’ve used with others, that I’ve used with myself through the years that I thought if nothing else positive comes from this whole experience, the whole weekend, all of the training, everything was worth having this one understanding because I’ve used it again and again. So I hope others can give it out a try. And I love how we just practiced it and how it helped you, you know, get to a place where you said you would.

Peter Morrison (07:08)
It’s kind of funny because working from home, I’m thinking back to when I used to have to go into an office and sure, some days you’d stay late, but it wasn’t the norm. Or if you had a project and whatever, whatever time your end of day was, it’s like, well, work stopped at that time. And you know, you’d pick it up again the next morning.

Martha McKinnon (07:40)
Right. Yeah, but we can. I think that’s part of what a lot of people have found when you’re working and living in the same space, that everything can kind of just meld together and you don’t have the clear delineations that you have when you’re going to an office. And it’s something that people really have to take a look at and create some boundaries for themselves.

Otherwise it can all just… whatever, work can overtake your life, you know, if you don’t set. And it can be, I think it can be the other side for some people too, where they can never get to the office because work ends up taking over their life. So whatever your challenge is, it can morph in either direction. But I think you just have to have that awareness of it and then just start setting up boundaries for yourself.

Peter Morrison (08:29)
And I honestly believe that one simple step of stopping my work at a certain time is the one thing. It’s gonna make everything else so much easier because you know, I’ll be able to get dinner on the table at a decent time. I’ll be able to relax after that for a little bit and I’ll be able to get to bed at a decent time. I mean, so it’s kind of interesting.

Martha McKinnon (08:56)
Yeah, cool. So I’m going to be curious to follow up to see how this works. This is something we may end up wanting to visit again and again, just to help people reinforce it and see the power of it. So I can’t wait for our next session so that I can check in with you to see how it goes. You’re in the hot seat.

Peter Morrison (09:11)
Mm-hmm. I’m kind of nervous now, I feel like I put myself on the hot seat.

Martha McKinnon (09:14)
You’re in the heat seat.

Peter Morrison (09:17)
Well, thank you.

Martha McKinnon (09:18)
Well, thank you. Thank you for taking part in this and I would love for others to try it out and see how effective it is for you because I found it very, very helpful in my own life. So check it out and let us know how it works for you.

Peter Morrison (09:33)
All right, have a good day.

Martha McKinnon (09:36)
Take care, bye bye.