One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

by Robert Maurer

When your allotted time for mind sculpture has become habitual and even fun, you may find that you are automatically performing the forme...

you should increase slowly, perhaps by just thirty seconds. You should increase the length and pace only when the previous stage of mind sculpture has become effortless.

Once you feel comfortable using mind sculpture for this task (and it may take days or weeks or even longer), imagine a worst-case scenario and how you would respond effectively to it.

Small questions are a powerful way to generate ideas for mind sculpture. Just ask yourself: What is a tiny step I could make to achieve my goal?

Let the question stew for a few days or weeks. When you have an answer, you can use mind sculpture to imagine yourself taking that step.

Since it’s much easier for most self-critical people to be kind to others, try imagining that you are comforting a friend or a small child who has made the same mistake or has the same flaw you see in yourself. Hear that person saying the damaging things you say to yourself, such as “I’m a bad person” or “I’ll never get it right!” Now imagine yourself comforting that person.

Take Small Actions

By taking steps so tiny that they seem trivial or even laughable, you’ll sail calmly past obstacles that have defeated you before.

What if I fail? What if I achieve my goal—and I’m still unhappy?

Small actions trick the brain into thinking: Hey, this change is so tiny that it’s no big deal. No need to get worked up. No risk of failure or unhappiness here.

No Time, No Money? Kaizen Fits Your Life

As proof, let me show you how a couple of small kaizen actions—requiring only a few extra moments each day—rescued a medical clinic from financial disaster.

that step does lead you comfortably to a second step and then a third, and so on, until one day you discover that you have mastered the

change.

Taking small steps, knowing that you are calming fear and building a new habit, requires trust and optimism.

How can I get to my goal in one minute a day? At this rate, it’ll take years! But kaizen asks us to be patient. It asks us to have faith that with small steps, we can better overcome the mind’s initial resistance to change. We do not have control of the timetable for our change—just as we cannot pinpoint the moment we achieved a goal such as learning to drive or ski or play the guitar.

“I Just Can’t Bring Myself to Do It”: How Kaizen Melts Resistance

they go home and meditate for one minute than not meditate for thirty minutes. They might like it. They may forget to stop.”

As you plan your own small steps toward change, keep in mind that sometimes, despite your best planning, you’ll hit a wall of resistance. Don’t give up! Instead, try scaling back the size of your steps. Remember that your goal is to bypass fear—and to make the steps so small that you can barely notice an effort. When the steps are easy enough, the mind will usually take over and leapfrog over obstacles to achieve your goal.

Isn’t slow change better than what

I’ve experienced before . . . which is no change at all?

set your goals lower.

If you save one dollar each day, at the end of the year you’ll have $365. Start a list of things you’d like to do with that extra money and add one idea each day.

Every day, think of one additional location or group and add it to your list. Remember that this is not a to-do list; you are simply generating ideas.

Think of someone you know who has a full and happy social life. Ask this person where he or she has met friends.

Use time more productively. Small Steps: Make a list of activities that take up your time but are not useful or stimulating to you. Watching television, browsing through stores, and reading things you don’t find pleasant or productive are frequent sources of poorly used time. Make a list of activities you would like to try that you feel would be more productive than your current ones. Each day, add one item to the list. Once you have identified more-productive activities that you’d like to try, go ahead and give them a whirl—but in a very limited, nonthreatening manner.

we are biologically “wired” to reach out for support when we’re stressed; it’s in our nature.

cigarettes or food or other substances become dependable companions, providing comfort consistently and reliably—but

If a person like this tries to quit the addiction without learning to ask others for help, that person is unlikely to succeed. Living without this “friend” is just too frightening.

we all need some form of external support, and Rachel’s was cigarettes. When things got tough, she’d take her “best friend” outside and smoke. The nicotine lifted her when she was depressed and calmed her when she was anxious.

one of the most solid predictors of success in life is whether a person turns to another human for support in times of trouble or fear.

If Rachel really was to succeed, she’d have to learn to trust, to find a human companion and confidante who could replace cigarettes.

call my voice mail once a day. All she had to say was, “Hi, it’s Rachel.” She was taken aback when she realized this teeny step made her nervous. She then understood its value: If you’ve spent a lifetime avoiding dependence, the simple act of calling into voice mail violates your promise never to need another person.

What Will Be Your First Small Step?

ask you the question over and over until your brain produces a true kaizen answer—a step so easy that you can guarantee you’ll take it every single day.

Learning to Spot Small Problems

Try these exercises to sharpen your small-problem vision:

teaching a weekend course

Blind Spot Number One: At the Beginning of Your Path to Change

Near the Finish Line

Is this person aware of the problem? Will he or she take responsibility for it and work to correct it? Does this small flaw point to bigger issues that we need to discuss?

you are counting on the repetition of the small step to “program” the brain for the life changes you wish to make.

small signs that you are resisting the small step—that you are having to push yourself to do the step—are an indication that the step is too big,

Becky was excellent at giving help to others but fearful of receiving it, and the more she needed help, the harder it was to ask for.

welcome friends back into her life. Each morning, Becky wrote a list of chores. She put a star next to each chore with which she’d like to have assistance and described the specific help she’d like.

“I wish a friend would sit with me while I deal on the phone with the HMO or fill out their paperwork,” she wrote. “I wish a friend would go to the Wellness Community [a local support group for people coping with cancer] and find out what it is like. I wish a friend would hold me when I am crying.”

lasting change.

smaller ideas that may be more practical or useful—but

in Japan, the value of the average reward is $3.88 (as opposed to the American average of $458.00).

small rewards encourage internal motivation because they are really a form of recognition rather than material gain, signaling that the corporation or boss appreciates the employee’s internal desire to improve and contribute.