Bigger is better. We do not like things to be small. When we make changes, they need to be huge and life changing RIGHT AWAY!
And that is where most of us fail.
-I need to quit smoking, I'm going cold turkey.
-2017 is going to be the year I will workout EVERY day.
-Time to clean up the old diet! Get out of here pizza and pasta, get in here broccoli and beets. Salads and water until I lose 40 pounds and get back into those Jordache jeans from 6th grade.
Those scenarios usually end up like you think they would. Our brains are hardwired to make change difficult.
This is a great quote from Robert Maurer's book One Small Step Can Change Your Life, The Kaizen Way:
“All changes, even positive ones, are scary. Attempts to reach goals through radical or revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. But the small steps of kaizen disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought and creative play.”
Kaizen is the art of making great and lasting change through small, steady steps. It is about getting 1% better every day by doing things that seem so tiny they should be irrelevant.
Two examples of this are:
Eating just one less bite of food every meal. Then a month later, you eat two less bites.
Start an exercise program by just standing on a treadmill for one minute a day.
Those seem like such tiny things, but you don't stop there. You continue to slowly make progress, build confidence, and stick to the program.
Where are you stuck? What is it that you can not seem to accomplish? Are you willing to try something new?
It will take patience, but if you are willing to persist the Kaizen method may be just the thing you need to finally succeed.
