One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

by Robert Maurer

“Small things with great love. . . . It is not how much we do, but how much love we put into the doing. And it is not how much we give, but how much love we put into the giving. To God there is nothing small.” —Mother Teresa

Kaizen is an ancient philosophy captured in this powerful statement from the Tao Te Ching: “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

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

In our “bigger is better” culture of IMAX movies, supersize meals, and extreme makeovers, it’s hard to believe that small steps can lead to big changes. But the wonderful reality is that they can.

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” —Mother Teresa

“I long to accomplish a great and noble task but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” —Helen Keller

“We have to learn to live happily in the present moment, to touch the peace and joy that are available now.” —Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddhist Zen master

“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” —Albert Einstein

That’s the problem with innovation. Too often, you meet with success in the short term, only to find yourself falling back into your old ways when your initial burst of enthusiasm fades away. Radical change is like charging up a steep hill—you may run out of wind before you reach the crest, or the thought of all the work ahead makes you give up no sooner than you’ve begun.

“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

Kaizen Versus Innovation Kaizen and innovation are the two major strategies people use to create change. Where innovation demands shocking and radical reform, all kaizen asks is that you take small, comfortable steps toward improvement.

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

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

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.

The real problem with the amygdala and its fight-or-flight response today is that it sets off alarm bells whenever we want to make a departure from our usual, safe routines.

The brain is designed so that any new challenge or opportunity or desire triggers some degree of fear.

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. The bigger the challenge, the more excited and productive and thrilled they become.

As your small steps continue and your cortex starts working, the brain begins to create “software” for your desired change, actually laying down new nerve pathways and building new habits.

Small actions (say, writing just three notes) satisfy your brain’s need to do something and soothe its distress. As the alarms die down, you’ll renew access to the cortex and get some of your creative juices flowing again.

While the modern medical name for the feeling produced by a new challenge or large goal is stress, for countless generations it went by the old, familiar name of fear.

And Sally Ride, the astronaut, is unafraid to talk plainly of fear: “All adventures, especially into new territory, are scary.”

This approach to fear is unproductive. If your expectation is that a well-run life should always be orderly, you are setting yourself up for panic and defeat. If you assume that a new job or relationship or health goal is supposed to be easy, you will feel angry and confused when fear arises—and you’ll do anything to make it disappear.

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.

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

Small questions create a mental environment that welcomes unabashed creativity and playfulness. When you ask small questions of others, you channel that creative force toward team goals. By asking small questions of yourself, you lay the groundwork for a personalized program for change.

“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.

questions are simply better at engaging the brain. Your brain wants to play!

I suggest they pose kaizen questions to themselves: If health were my first priority, what would I be doing differently today? What is one way I can remind myself to drink more water? How could I incorporate a few more minutes of exercise into my daily routine? After they let their brains chew on these questions for a few days, patients who formerly insisted they had no time for their health start to come up with creative ways to incorporate good habits into their routines.

Each of these women reported that she was making better food choices and slowing down to enjoy meals, simply because the right—and repeated—question made her more aware of her health.

Your brain loves questions and won’t reject them . . . unless the question is so big it triggers fear.

By asking small, gentle questions, we keep the fight-or-flight response in the “off” position. Kaizen questions such as “What’s the smallest step I can take to be more efficient?”

Ask a question often enough, and you’ll find your brain storing the questions, turning them over, and eventually generating some interesting and useful responses.

Make your questions small, and you reduce the chances of waking the amygdala and arousing debilitating fear. When fear is quiet, the brain can take in the questions and then pop out answers on its own timetable.

Even if you’re not an aspiring novelist, small questions can help calm the fears that squelch creativity in other realms of life.

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, ...

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?).

If you are trying to reach a specific goal, ask yourself every day: What is one small step I could take toward reaching my goal?

If you are generally content with your life but would like to remain alert to possibilities for excellence, you can ask yourself a slightly different version of the question above: What is one small step I could take to improve my health (or relationships, or career, or any other area)?

Try asking yourself: Is there a person at work or in my personal life whose voice and input I haven’t heard in a long time? What small question could I ask this person?

This question is for anyone who has a festering conflict with another person, whether a boss, employee, in-law, or neighbor, and is trying to get past this problem. Every day, ask yourself: What’s one good thing about this person?

If you tend to feel pessimistic or negative, try asking yourself this question: What is one small thing that is special about me (or my spouse, or my organization)?

The easy technique of mind sculpture uses “small thoughts” to help you develop new social, mental, and even physical skills—just by imagining yourself performing them!

Mind sculpture, developed by Ian Robertson, is a newer technique that involves total but still-imaginary sensory immersion. It requires its practitioners to pretend that they are actually engaged in the action, not just seeing but hearing, tasting, smelling, and touching. In mind sculpture, people imagine the movement of their muscles, and the rise and fall of their emotions.

In one study, people who practiced a five-finger piano exercise for two hours a day showed a similar increase in brain activity as those who performed the exercise solely in their imaginations—without ever touching a keyboard.

Mind sculpture is so effective in neutralizing fear that it’s even worked for earthquake or accident victims who suffer from flashbacks. They imagine themselves inside the flashback—but they envision a positive resolution. The same goes for people with recurring nightmares: I ask them to relive the dream, but with a happy ending. Dozens of my clients have used this technique, and for each one the nightmare or flashback has vanished within a matter of days.

Decide how many seconds you’re willing to devote to mind sculpture for this task each day. Make sure you allot seconds, not minutes or hours; the time commitment should be so low that you can easily fulfill its requirements every single day. Repetition is essential: Whatever you do repeatedly, even if for only a few seconds at a time, the brain decides must be important and so begins committing cells to the new behavior.