That’s the purpose of the 10-Minute Monday Plan. To get you in the habit of being mindful when it comes to your money.

Every Monday, you’ll receive three simple actions that take about ten minutes to complete. They won’t solve every financial challenge overnight, and they aren’t designed to. Instead, they’re designed to help you build the one habit that changes everything: consistently paying attention to your money.

Some weeks, your action might be reviewing your recent spending. Another week, it might be transferring a small amount into savings, checking your progress on debt, or planning for an upcoming expense. Each step is intentionally simple because simple actions are the ones we actually do.

If you’re facing significant financial challenges, you’ll likely have bigger decisions to make along the way. But even those bigger decisions become less overwhelming when you’ve developed the habit of taking small, consistent steps.

Every completed action is a small win.

Small wins build confidence.

Confidence creates momentum.

Momentum changes habits.

And changed habits lead to lasting financial freedom.

The goal isn’t perfection. The goal is progress.

Imagine where you’ll be one year from now after completing three simple actions every week. That’s more than 150 intentional decisions moving you toward greater peace, greater confidence, and greater control over your money.

You don’t need to change your entire financial life today.

You just need to take the next step.

And on Monday, we’ll take it together.

One widely cited study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology examined the happiness levels of lottery winners. As expected, their happiness surged immediately after receiving their winnings. But within just a few months, most had returned to the same level of happiness they experienced before winning. Surprisingly, some reported being less happy than before their windfall.

Psychologist Dr. Daniel Gilbert, a leading researcher on happiness, often illustrates this point with a provocative question:

“Who do you think will be happier a year from now? A person who has just won a $314 million lottery jackpot, or someone who has just become a paraplegic?”

Most people instinctively choose the lottery winner. The research, however, points in a different direction.

Study after study has shown that life’s biggest victories and deepest disappointments have far less influence on our long-term happiness than we imagine. Winning or losing an election, getting a promotion, ending a relationship, passing an important exam, or even experiencing significant setbacks tend to affect us with less intensity and for a much shorter time than we expect.

In fact, research on major life traumas suggests that, with a few notable exceptions, events that occurred more than three months earlier often have surprisingly little effect on a person’s overall level of happiness.

Why?

Dr. Gilbert argues that happiness is not simply something we discover—it is something we synthesize. In other words, human beings possess an extraordinary ability to adapt. Synthetic happiness is created when we don’t get our desired outcome, yet still find genuine fulfillment. We continually reinterpret our experiences, reshape our perspective, and find meaning even in circumstances we would never have chosen.

One of the most remarkable examples comes from a man named Morreese Bickham.

You have probably never heard his name, but his story is unforgettable.

At the age of 78, Bickham was released from the Louisiana State Penitentiary after spending 37 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. After losing nearly four decades of his life to wrongful imprisonment, reporters asked how he felt.

His response stunned everyone:

“I don’t have one minute of regret. It was a glorious experience.”

Glorious.

That’s hardly the word most of us would use to describe nearly four decades behind bars. Yet Bickham had chosen not to let bitterness define his life. Instead, he found meaning, resilience, and even gratitude in circumstances that most people would consider unbearable.

His story illustrates a profound truth: contentment is not determined solely by what happens to us, but by how we interpret what happens to us.

This doesn’t mean pain isn’t real or that tragedy should be minimized. It means our circumstances do not have the final say. We have an extraordinary capacity to adapt, to grow, and to find purpose even in life’s most difficult chapters.

Perhaps that’s why contentment remains one of life’s greatest treasures. It cannot be purchased, won, or achieved through external success alone. It is cultivated through perspective, gratitude, and the daily choice to focus on what truly matters.

Real happiness is not waiting for the next promotion, the perfect relationship, or the winning lottery ticket.

It begins when we learn that contentment is less about changing our circumstances and more about changing the way we see them.

My best friend, author Rick Enloe, had a remarkable way of reframing life’s circumstances. Whether something good or bad happened, he would almost always say, “It’s better this way.” It wasn’t denial or blind optimism. It was his way of choosing to believe that even life’s disappointments could hold purpose, meaning, and unexpected good. It was a way of synthesizing his circumstances—choosing to interpret them in a way that produced meaning, acceptance, and ultimately, contentment.

Over the next few months, we’ll explore one of life’s greatest treasures: contentment. Through a series of articles on this platform, we’ll discover practical habits, timeless wisdom, and surprising insights that can help us experience greater peace and satisfaction regardless of our circumstances. If that’s the kind of life you’re pursuing, I’d love for you to subscribe and join me on the journey.

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