Monday Morning Coach Archives - Power of Thinking Small

The Power of Thinking Small

I’ve recently revisited an audio CD program (and book by the same name) titled “One Small Step Can Change Your Life” with Dr. Robert Maurer, a psychologist whose life work is focused on the power of thinking small, taking small steps, asking small questions to help people achieve their goals.  It’s been tremendously helpful to me in the past month in several important areas of my life.

Dr. Maurer has based his research on the principle of “Kaizen” a term coined after World War II by an American consultant who helped the Japanese rebuild their economy by focusing on the power of small steps.  Kaizen means "continuous improvement." The process has recharged my batteries for taking small steps toward my goals instead of thinking in terms of leaps and bounds.  Monday mornings are a perfect time to practice Kaizen because so often we are searching for the magic motivation bullet to get us in action.  I think Kaizen is it.

Taking small steps does several things to build our motivation and performance muscles.

First, small steps create movement and movement is at the heart of motivation.  We often delude ourselves into thinking that there is some kind of “motivation fairy” out there, and if she just comes along and sprinkles magic motivation dust on us we’ll get moving.  Dream on!   It’s action that creates motivation, rarely the other way around.

Think about the exercise regimen you promised to start at the beginning of 2010.  “I will exercise 30 minutes a day, five days a week.”  How’s your track record so far?  It’s pretty easy to talk yourself out of 30 minutes a day, so by the end of the first or second week of January you’ve lost whatever steam you might have had, and are now busy rationalizing why you can’t exercise 30 minutes a day—ever.  Are you waiting for the motivation fairy to strike?  There is a motivation fairy and it starts with you and me taking small actions toward our big goals.

What if you decided that for the next 30 days you would exercise one minute a day?  You may be thinking that one minute a day is ridiculous, and it is.  But it’s a start, and it’s pretty likely that one minute may lead to two; two to three, etc.  Look at it this way, one minute may be ridiculous but compared to the 30 minutes you promised yourself and aren’t doing it’s a quantum leap!!

It’s pretty easy to commit to and accomplish one minute a day of just about anything.  So if you want to start exercising, marching in place during one TV commercial break will do the trick!!  If the goal is to start flossing your teeth (your dentist will love you!), start with one tooth a day!  You know you “should” be eating 5-9 servings of fresh fruits and veggies daily and you’re currently eating far less—start with one bite or one piece of fruit.  Whatever the goal, the smallest of steps taken consistently will move you toward it far more powerfully than the self-defeating habit of setting a big goal and then deciding you can leap tall buildings in a single bound to get there.

Here’s a success formula that sums up the motivational power of small steps:  Small actions + consistency + positive emotion = motivation.

The second benefit of taking small steps is that they build momentum.  Over the years of presenting seminars and coaching, I’ve heard many inspiring stories of how a small step ultimately led to the realization of a big goal.  One woman shared with me that she had dreamed of taking a trip to the Philippines.  The cost as well as the time involved to get there were overwhelming.  She didn’t have the money she knew it would take.  But she decided to start doing small things that wouldn’t cost her anything.  She began by reviewing travel brochures (these were the days long before Google!).  Next she decided to find out what kind of vaccinations she might need to travel there.  Third, she started sharing her dream with others.  And yes, you guessed it, she did in fact realize her dream of visiting the Philippines—that year.  It was the momentum created by taking one small step and then another that moved her toward the goal.

Never underestimate the power of momentum.  And never believe the myth of the “overnight success.”  Read any story of an athlete or successful person in any arena and you’ll see the power of momentum at work.  Small steps, done consistently build momentum.  And momentum creates an energy of its own that starts to work on your behalf.

Third, small steps by-pass the “fear factor” that threatens to derail so much of what we set out to do.  As a coach I have worked with many people over the years who have had big goals and aspirations.  The reason they’ve hired me as a coach is often that they’re afraid of what the goal entails, and they want support.  In his book and CD program, Dr. Maurer cites the brain research which shows that when we identify a big goal and start taking big steps, there is a part of our brain that is wired to protect us from perceived danger.  The job of that more primitive brain is to steer us toward security.  But we can outsmart that automatic security device by taking consistent, small steps.

Many great authors talk of the terror that possesses them when they think about writing a whole book.  So they focus on writing one page.  “Just” one page.  And yet by doing so they begin to move forward and build their confidence as well.  Fear can derail us no matter what the goal—making sales calls, exercise, writing or speaking, building a business, even something as seemingly simple as taking time off from work for a workaholic can create a perceived threat.

So this week, my challenge to you is to think small.  I’m not saying have small goals.  Dream big, but realize that “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”  Whether you’re trying to build a business, change a long-entrenched habit, lose weight, change your eating patterns, watch less TV, exercise or any of a thousand positive goals you’ve set for yourself the old adage, “inch-by-inch it’s a cinch, yard-by-yard, it’s hard” applies. 

Here are your action steps:

1)    Pick a goal you want to achieve.

2)    Identify the tiniest step you might take.  Make it something so small you may actually laugh at yourself when you think about it.

3)    Commit to doing that tiny step daily for the next 21 days.

4)    Do it and watch your confidence, momentum and motivation grow.

 So the question is:  What small step will you take right now to move you toward your goal? 

Here's to the power of your small steps this week!