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

“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.” —John Wooden, one of the most successful coaches in the history of college basketball

low-key change helps the human mind circumnavigate the fear that blocks success and creativity.

Sometimes making the space to work on the smallest next step to move something forward is large enough that I get scared of it.

I’ve developed a theory about why kaizen works when all else fails. I outline this theory in the first chapter. The succeeding chapters are devoted to the personal application of kaizen and encompass six different strategies. These strategies include: asking small questions to dispel fear and inspire creativity thinking small thoughts to develop new skills and habits—without moving a muscle taking small actions that guarantee success solving small problems, even when you’re faced with an overwhelming crisis bestowing small rewards to yourself or others to produce the best results recognizing the small but crucial moments that everyone else ignores

Layout of the book, just so you can see if it interests you. My main criticism is that it is exactly what it sounds like—6 variants on the same tactic that could all fit on an index card.

Why Kaizen Works 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.

This makes sense.

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

There should be a helpful line break right in front of "small goal" but this just illustrates why small goals work.

This common but counterproductive phenomenon is captured in a familiar joke: A drunk is on his hands and knees looking for his keys under a streetlight. A policeman approaches him and asks, “What are you doing?” The drunk replies in a slurred voice, “I’m looking for my keys.” The policeman further inquires, “Where did you drop them?” The drunk says, “Over there,” pointing to the end of the city block. The policeman scratches his head and says, “If you dropped the keys over there, why are you looking for them over here?” And the drunk replies, “Because the light is better over here.” 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.

I know well the tendency to go where comfortable. Gains are found when you go where needed instead.

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” —Mark Twain

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

What question am I not thinking right now?

Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, uses small questions when he sits down to write his novels. “I don’t have any grand themes in my head,” he says (a statement you’ll hear echoed by other great writers). Nor does he start with an impossibly large question, such as “What kind of character would be fascinating to readers?” Instead, he takes a few incidents—“like [a] plane crash or the idea of a patient and a nurse at night talking”—and asks himself a few very small questions, such as “Who is the man in the plane? Why is he there? Why does he crash? What year is this?” Of the answers to small questions, he says, “Those little fragments, fragments of mosaics, they add up and you start finding out the past of these characters and trying to invent a past for these characters.” The answers to his small questions eventually lead him to remarkably round, realistic characters and prize-winning novels.

I love this idea of pulling the thread to develop a story. Start someplace mundane and traverse to the spectacular.

Kaizen Tip You want to do something creative: write a story or a song, paint a picture, dream up your perfect career, or come up with a zinger of a solution to an office problem. But you have no idea where to start. Your mind keeps coming up empty. During times like these, kaizen can help you summon your powers of inspiration. Although you can’t force your brain to cough up creative ideas on demand, you can program it to launch the imaginative process simply by asking yourself a small question. Here are some of the most popular small questions my clients use for creativity. Feel free to come up with your own. Whatever question you use, your challenge is to ask it with a gentle and patient spirit. When you use a harsh or urgent tone with yourself, fear will clog the creative process. What’s one thing I wish to contribute to the world with my book, poem, song, or painting? Whom could I ask for help or inspiration? What is special about my creative process/talents/business team? What type of work would excite and fulfill me? Remember: If you repeat the question over the course of several days or weeks—or for however long it takes—the hippocampus (the part of the brain that stores information) will have no choice but to address it. And in its own way, on its own timetable, the brain will begin giving you answers.

At first glance, this appears to be nothing more than an example of a rock band’s narcissistic excess. Van Halen’s tours were among the first to bring highly technical, very complex stagecraft to venues. Their legendary lead vocalist David Lee Roth says, “We’d pull up with nine eighteen-wheeler trucks full of gear, where the standard was three trucks. And there were many, many technical errors. When I would walk backstage, if I saw a brown M&M in the bowl, we’d line-check the entire production. Guaranteed you’re going to arrive at a technical error. Guaranteed you’d run into a problem.” Yet how many times have we, in our haste to reach a goal, spotted signs of trouble—and then recategorized them as “normal,” just to avoid facing them?

I’ve heard this anecdote but never quite this variant. Sloppiness is one area indicates lack of attention in others. There’s a sushi restaurant near work that’s dusty as all hell, despite otherwise attractive finishes and sushi. I stopped eating there because I can’t trust it.

when you’re landing planes atop a ship in the middle of the ocean, one error, even a tiny one, could spell disaster. Officers and crew are trained not to assume the system will run perfectly on its own. Instead, they look for the slightest signal that things are going awry. They listen for subtle signs of tension in pilots’ voices when they circle the ship to dump excess fuel. They walk the ship many times a day looking for “foreign objects”—anything that could be sucked into the jet’s engine—basing their scrutiny on the assumption that anything that can go wrong, will. They also devote rigorous attention to the nature of each landing. On the deck of the aircraft carrier, there are four arresting wires that can catch the plane’s tailhook. A pilot strives not to catch the first or second wire (because it would mean they’d landed too soon) or the fourth (which is unnervingly close to missing the deck and falling into the ocean). The third wire is ideal. Those landings that catch the first, second, or fourth wires are reviewed so that the pilot and crew can spot and correct the causes of the deviation.

Followup when anything lands outside of your expectation.

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

When we face personal crises, the kaizen strategy of solving small problems offers consolation and practical assistance. If we are involved in a lawsuit, or fall ill, or find that the economic tides are leaving our business high and dry, or our partner is falling out of love with us, we cannot fix our circumstances with one quick, decisive moment of innovation. During these crises, the only concrete steps available are small ones. When our lives are in great distress, even while we are feeling out of control or in emotional pain, we can try to locate the smaller problems within the larger disaster, and perhaps apply any or all of the kaizen techniques to move us slowly in the direction of a solution. But if we are blind to the small, manageable problems, we are more likely to slip into despair.

Take George, a police officer who hated his job but just couldn’t think of a more suitable career. I asked him to find one moment each day when he enjoyed his police work. As he wrote down these small moments, he noticed a pattern. He felt most satisfied when he talked to prisoners in the squad car, asking them about their problems and giving them advice. He even loved to go back to the jail after the prisoner was booked—just to continue the conversation! It didn’t take long for George to see what had been right under his nose for so long: He wanted to become a counselor. George is now taking psychology courses at night. And his police work is more interesting now that he sees he’s gathering experience toward his new career. When you’re implementing a plan for change but find yourself bored, restless, and stuck, look around for hidden moments of delight. People who are most successful at improving their health habits are those who can transform exercise or eating well into a source of excitement and pride.

“The true creator may be recognized by his ability to always find about him, in the commonest and humblest thing, items worthy of note.” —Igor Stravinsky

“Turning toward your spouse in the little ways is also the key to long-lasting romance. Many people think that the secret to reconnecting with their partner is a candlelight dinner or a by-the-sea vacation. But the real secret is to turn toward each other in little ways every day.” —John Gottman