One Small Step Can Change Your Life
Kaizen beat my all-or-nothing fails. Tiny steps compound while I sleep.
productivityWe are so accustomed to living with minor annoyances that it’s not always easy to identify them, let alone make corrections. But these annoyances have a way of acquiring mass and eventually blocking your path to change. By training yourself to spot and solve small problems, you can avoid undergoing much more painful remedies later.
AQ's take: Minor annoyances snowball in my chaos. Spot them early.
Oct 12, 2024how many times have we, in our haste to reach a goal, spotted signs of trouble—and then recategorized them as “normal,” just to avoid facing them?
AQ's take: I ignore red flags chasing speed. Classic me.
Oct 12, 2024Hindsight, as they say, is 20/20, and it’s always easier to spot a crack in the ceiling after rain has soaked the plaster.
AQ's take: Hindsight owns my disasters. Small fixes now save pain.
Oct 12, 2024“Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.” —Tao Te Ching
AQ's take: Tao nails it. My big swings always flop.
Oct 12, 2024“broken windows” theory, first postulated in 1982 by two criminologists, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. The broken windows theory held that if a city—or a neighborhood or a street—tolerated minor infractions of the law, it was practically inviting more serious offenses.
AQ's take: Broken windows? My messy desk proves the theory daily.
Oct 12, 2024Whether you wish to train yourself or others to instill better habits, small rewards are the perfect encouragement. Not only are they inexpensive and convenient, but they also stimulate the internal motivation required for lasting change.
AQ's take: Tiny rewards hook my dopamine-starved brain. Smart.
Oct 12, 2024The kaizen approach to life requires a slower pace and an appreciation of small moments. This pleasant technique can lead to creative breakthroughs and strengthened relationships, and give you a daily boost toward excellence.
AQ's take: Savoring small moments? Antidote to my rushed burnout.
Oct 12, 2024“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe
AQ's take: Noble in details? My ADHD nightmare, but aspirational.
Oct 12, 2024“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” —Desmond Tutu
AQ's take: Little goods accumulate. My scattered efforts might add up.
Oct 12, 2024“Turning toward your spouse in the little ways is also the key to long-lasting romance. Many people think that the secret to reconnecting with their partner is a candlelight dinner or a by-the-sea vacation. But the real secret is to turn toward each other in little ways every day.” —John Gottman
AQ's take: Wife and I barely talk amid 15-hour days. Daily nods beat vacations we can't take.
Oct 12, 2024Ask yourself: Do I need to learn to change anything based on this worry or regret of mine?
AQ's take: ADHD regrets loop forever. This question forces action, kills the spin cycle.
Oct 12, 2024“Small things with great love. . . . It is not how much we do, but how much love we put into the doing. And it is not how much we give, but how much love we put into the giving. To God there is nothing small.” —Mother Teresa
AQ's take: Mother Teresa nails it. My big dreams flop, but small acts with love actually stick.
Sep 21, 2024Kaizen is an ancient philosophy captured in this powerful statement from the Tao Te Ching: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Though it is rooted in ancient philosophy, it is just as practical and effective when applied to our hectic modern lives. Kaizen has two definitions: using very small steps to improve a habit, a process, or product using very small moments to inspire new products and inventions
AQ's take: Kaizen hits my ADHD sweet spot. One tiny step beats my epic failure marathons.
Sep 21, 2024As John Wooden, the legendary UCLA basketball coach, expressed it, “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you.”
AQ's take: Wooden reminds me: real wins come from unrepaid favors. I've skipped too many.
Sep 21, 2024“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?” —Martin Luther King Jr.
AQ's take: MLK calls out my selfishness. What am I building for others? Ouch.
Sep 21, 2024“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” —Mother Teresa
AQ's take: Mother Teresa's bar is high. I leave people annoyed half the time.
Sep 21, 2024“I long to accomplish a great and noble task but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” —Helen Keller
AQ's take: Keller's truth stings. I chase noble quests but botch small tasks daily.
Sep 21, 2024“I would rather have it said, ‘He lived usefully’ than ‘He died rich.’ ” —Benjamin Franklin
AQ's take: Franklin prioritizes impact over cash. I've chased riches, got neither.
Sep 21, 2024“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with the first step.” —Lao Tzu
AQ's take: Lao Tzu echoes my 1001 blog fails. First step's the killer.
Sep 21, 2024“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.” —John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches in the history of college basketball
AQ's take: Wooden's daily grind wisdom. My 'big changes' never last; small ones do.
Sep 21, 2024Kaizen Versus Innovation Kaizen and innovation are the two major strategies people use to create change. Where innovation demands shocking and radical reform, all kaizen asks is that you take small, comfortable steps toward improvement.
AQ's take: Kaizen over innovation? Perfect for my procrastination hell. Tiny wins first.
Sep 21, 2024A frustrated manager might actually try giving smaller, not larger, rewards to employees to increase their motivation.
AQ's take: Small rewards? Explains why my team crushes pizza Fridays.
Sep 21, 2024low-key change helps the human mind circumnavigate the fear that blocks success and creativity.
AQ's take: Fear bypass via small steps. My brain finally gets it.
Sep 21, 2024asking small questions to dispel fear and inspire creativity thinking small thoughts to develop new skills and habits—without moving a muscle taking small actions that guarantee success solving small problems, even when you’re faced with an overwhelming crisis bestowing small rewards to yourself or others to produce the best results recognizing the small but crucial moments that everyone else ignores
AQ's take: Small questions unlock my stalled ideas. Genius for idea-blocked geeks like me.
Sep 21, 2024large goal ➞ fear ➞ access to cortex restricted ➞ failure small goal ➞ fear bypassed ➞ cortex engaged ➞ success
AQ's take: Fear diagram explains my paralysis. Small goals = cortex unlocked. Duh.
Sep 21, 2024Jack Welch, the past CEO of General Electric: “Everyone who is running something goes home at night and wrestles with the same fear: Am I going to be the one who blows this place up?”
AQ's take: Welch voices my CEO nightmares. One wrong move and boom.
Sep 21, 2024When life gets scary and difficult, we tend to look for solutions in places where it is easy or at least familiar to do so, and not in the dark, uncomfortable places where real solutions might lie.
AQ's take: Default to easy fixes. Guilty. Real growth hides in the scary spots.
Sep 21, 2024“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” —Mark Twain
AQ's take: Twain gets courage right. I fear plenty but push through anyway.
Sep 21, 2024Small questions create a mental environment that welcomes unabashed creativity and playfulness. When you ask small questions of others, you channel that creative force toward team goals. By asking small questions of yourself, you lay the groundwork for a personalized program for change.
AQ's take: Small questions fuel my creativity drought. Asking tiny sparks big fires.
Sep 21, 2024“What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.” —Sam Keen
AQ's take: Keen's quote haunts me. Wrong questions kept me stuck for years.
Sep 21, 2024The hippocampus’s main criterion for storage is repetition, so asking that question over and over gives the brain no choice but to pay attention and begin to create answers.
AQ's take: Repetition forces brain storage. Daily small ask rewires my lazy wiring.
Sep 21, 2024Your brain loves questions and won’t reject them . . . unless the question is so big it triggers fear.
AQ's take: Big questions paralyze my ADHD brain. Small ones trick it into action.
Sep 21, 2024By asking small, gentle questions, we keep the fight-or-flight response in the “off” position. Kaizen questions such as “What’s the smallest step I can take to be more efficient?” or
AQ's take: Kaizen questions bypass my fear circuits. Finally, a hack for my lazy neurons.
Sep 21, 2024If I were guaranteed not to fail, what would I be doing differently?
AQ's take: Hits hard. I'd chase wild dreams if failure vanished. Reality check.
Sep 21, 2024What is one small step I could take toward reaching my goal?
AQ's take: One tiny step? That's my procrastination kryptonite. Genius.
Sep 21, 2024What is one small step I could take to improve my health (or relationships, or career, or any other area)?
AQ's take: Perfect for my health fails. Small wins beat my epic collapses.
Sep 21, 2024Is there a person at work or in my personal life whose voice and input I haven’t heard in a long time? What small question could I ask this person?
AQ's take: Revives forgotten voices at work. My blind spot exposed.
Sep 21, 2024What’s one good thing about this person?
AQ's take: Forces positivity on annoying people. Brain resists but obeys.
Sep 21, 2024What is one small thing that is special about me (or my spouse, or my organization)?
AQ's take: Spotlights my hidden strengths. ADHD fog lifts a bit.
Sep 21, 2024The easy technique of mind sculpture uses “small thoughts” to help you develop new social, mental, and even physical skills—just by imagining yourself performing them!
AQ's take: Imagining success rewires my quitter brain. Free upgrade.
Sep 21, 2024Mind sculpture, developed by Ian Robertson, is a newer technique that involves total but still-imaginary sensory immersion. It requires its practitioners to pretend that they are actually engaged in the action, not just seeing but hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. In mind sculpture, people imagine the movement of their muscles, and the rise and fall of their emotions.
AQ's take: Full sensory pretend-play? My geek mind geeks out on this.
Sep 21, 2024Isn’t slow change better than what I’ve experienced before . . . which is no change at all?
AQ's take: Slow change mocks my all-or-nothing fails. Patience wins.
Sep 21, 2024