As we turn towards 2022 I thought some smaller ideas might be helpful. A few years ago I read One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way. It is about the Japanese concept called kaizen. I’m sharing some key quotes directly from the book. I loved this book and refer to it often. Turns out small has some pretty impressive research and history behind it!
“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.”
-Robert Maurer One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
The idea is instead of setting big, hairy, audacious, goals-that inevitably end up not working out-the key to success is to find the smallest actions and steps and do those instead. Small steps taken consistently-over time create change and transformation.
Small steps or small goals work because change is scary.
Your brain is programmed to resist change. But, by taking small steps, you effectively rewire your nervous system so that it does the following:
“Unsticks” you from a creative block
Bypasses the fight-or-flight response
Creates new connections between neurons so that the brain enthusiastically takes over the process of change and you progress rapidly toward your goal.
-Robert Maurer One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
You can think of it this way:
Large goal→fear→access to cortex restricted→failure
Large goals create fear in the brain. When our brain is flooded with fear (if we consciously know it or not,) our access to the cortex is restricted. The cortex is the thinking, reasoning part of our brain. When we are in a fear response the part of the brain that is working is the amygdala-were the flight or fight part of our brain is.
Small goal→ fear bypassed →cortex engaged →success
Small goals are like tip-toeing around that part of the brain that activates the flight or fight mode of our brain. When the goal is small enough, we can achieve success because we still have access to our cortex, the thinking and reasoning part of our brain, and one small success leads to another small success-which ultimately make our brain feel good and we can keep going building on small success after small success while working around our brains powerful (and sometimes very helpful) fight or flight mode!
As we move towards 2022 and everything will be about new years resolutions, goals, etc. I’m focusing on small steps. Will you join me?
These are two small questions suggested in One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way.
What is the smallest step I can take to be more efficient?
What can I do in five minutes a day?
This is your permission slip to forgo a big, sparkly new years resolution. Try walking with these two small questions.
If the smallest step is putting away one paper clip on your desk each day or going on a five-minute walk each day. That’s it!!
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman
Amanda Gorman was the poet in yellow at the Presidential Inauguration that captivated the nation with her words. Call Us What We Carry is her newest book of poetry. I loved every word in this book. She is creative, witty, fun, and wise. Her words are powerful and playful.
“We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
to one another
We seek harm to none and harmony for all
Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true:
That even as we grieved, we grew
That even as we hurt, we hoped
That even as we tired, we tried”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
Our haiku offerings this month were synchronistic as always. We covered everything from deep calling to deep, shinning, shimmering rainy streets and the winter solstice.
You can watch our December Haiku Talk here and see each of the Haiku Cards.
I try and pay attention to words or phrases that stand out to me in my reading and listening. There is a spiritual practice called Florliledgium that collects short, interesting pieces {words that “sparkle” up} and put them together. This is kind of like that. Watching for things that sparkle. Gathering them and seeing how they work together and what message, mantra, or new idea might arise.)
A Practice:
Read slowly.
Notice if a word or phrase stands out to you.
How do the words make you feel?
Is there an invitation?
(I’m sharing in italics the lines that stand out to me in these passages. Maybe it’s the same, or maybe it’s different, there is much food for thought in each of these passages)
“consider how the world might be different if more of us conducted our social, business, and romantic lives with the belief that small steps matter, that even the shortest contact with another person is inherently important.”
― Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
Kaizen offers the possibility that through small acts of kindness, and even small moments of compassion and curiosity, we can change ourselves and, eventually, humanity. We can focus on being generous in daily thoughts and actions so that we don’t hoard our kindness for some important person or event, but spend it freely when our children anger us or when an employee deserves a small compliment. We can respect others by asking them small questions.
― Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way
“The only way to correctly predict
The future is to pave it,
Is to brave it.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
“We find ourselves not by being
The most seen, but the most seeing.
We watch a toddler
Freewheel through warm grass,
Not fleeing, just running, the way rivers do,
For it is in their unfettered nature.
We smile, our whole face cleared
By that single dazzling thin.
How could we not be altered.”
― Amanda Gorman, Call Us What We Carry
