Thinking small to think big

Big is good. Or at least that’s what we always tell ourselves.

We like the grand gesture, the huge improvement, the splashy show. If it’s not big (and now), it’s easy for us to believe it didn’t really happen.

So it’s tempting to look for the one big thing you can do to change your life. The one big thing you can do to lose weight or find love or make money or be happy. We want the one big thing that will just fix everything and do it immediately. We (and yes, I mean me) want to just be there already.

But there is no one big thing. Hate to accept that fact, but Seth is right. Nothing changes everything. There are a thousand incremental changes, daily decisions, miniature revolutions required to move from where you are today to where you want to be. The real challenge isn’t making the small changes. It’s understanding that you need to commit to small changes, that you won’t get your end result just yet. It’s figuring out the right small changes to get you to the result you want. It’s accepting that you won’t get there tomorrow or next week or even next month.

But if you want to get there at all, you have to identify the small changes and be willing to make them. Without the small steps, you’re just kidding yourself about making it the thousand miles.

Comments

[Megan M.]

"So it’s tempting to look for the one big thing you can do to change your life." -- Or the one big thing you can pay someone else to do for you to change your life. I see this EVERYWHERE.