One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

by Robert Maurer

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

large goal ➞ fear ➞ access to cortex restricted ➞ failure small goal ➞ fear bypassed ➞ cortex engaged ➞ success

Some lucky people are able to get around this problem by turning their fear into another emotion: excitement.

When 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.

Conflict is a condition of being human; if people could control their actions easily, we’d be a much gentler species, and the front page of the morning newspaper would look a lot different.

Instead, use times of difficulty to remember that fear is the body’s gift, alerting us to a challenge. The more we care about something, the more we dream, the more fear shows up.

“What shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think to ask.” —Sam Keen

The 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.

Fears tend to sort themselves into two major categories: the fear of not being worthy (I don’t deserve it) and the fear of losing control (What if I like him and he leaves me?).

“Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.” —Tao Te Ching