Jun 15, 2015
Drug Addicts Didn’t Wake up and Think I”m going to get hooked on coke today.
It comes in tiny little incremental baby steps.
One line with a friend because it’s going to be a great night out and you haven’t had that in a while.
That leads to two…
Then to buying a bit of your own so you can share next time (nobody likes mooch).
Then just a bit the next morning to help you get started on your day.
… and so the story goes.
These small little baby steps over time will lead to a major change in your life.
There's something similar in the aviation world
I’m a licensed pilot and one of the things we learn as pilots is just about every accident begins with one or more minor shifts outside of the safety area. One extra bag of souvenirs from the trip that put you near the weight limit. Knowing you still have plenty of fuel from the day before so you don’t need to do a visual check. Pushing on to the next airport because there’s a storm coming and you want to beat it.
See, we push ourselves just a tiny bit outside of the complete safety zone. It’s a minor shift...
The Good News
The same works in the opposite direction as well.
Small little baby steps in the right direction, over time, lead to huge positive changes in our life.
Deciding to make one little change in what you eat each day.
Just 150 calories less each day, over time… makes a huge change.
Bringing a healthy lunch to work each day instead of “figuring something out when the time comes."
The same happens with fitness.
It doesn’t take you becoming a gym rat who spends 3 hours a day working out, for you to get fit.
Just a small shift like taking 10,000 steps per day.
Downloading and using daily the 7 Minute Workout App. 7 Minutes! That’s small.
Doing as many push ups as possible each day and then adding 1 more each week. Just 1 more per week.
In a year, you’re doing 52 more push ups than when you started.
The same can be applied to our knowledge.
Reading 15 minutes per day before you go to bed. Just 15 minutes..
In a year, that will be over 90 hours of reading.
If the average person reads 200 words per minute, you’ll have read over a million words.
The typical book is about 60,000 words
That means, in one year, with one minor shift… you’ll have read 18 books. MORE THAN NOW.
The Same Happens in Relationships
Do the same minor incremental change with your loved ones.
Tell you wife something she did that you appreciate just once per day.
See how that change will affect your relationship in a year. Try it.
Spend the time it takes to play for 15 more minutes with your child each day.
What about spending 1 meal per week together with the entire family. No TV… Just one a week.
What about a minor change with what goes into your mind?
Just one less 30 minute TV show each week will give you 26 hours a year to do something beneficial.
What if you invested that into the lives of a local non-profit, as a volunteer?
That’s a small incremental change that is invested in a small way into someone else’s life and look at the potential ripple effect that could have.
SMALL TINY CHANGES… In the right direction, over time, will leave you with a dramatically different life.
Remember that example.. you’re walking in the desert and you decide to shift to the right by just a small amount, 5 degrees… after 12 feet, you’ve shifted about 1 foot off your original path.
After 100 feet, you’ve shifted by almost 9 feet.
After just 1 mile, you’re shifted over about 450 feet from where you would have ended up. In ONE mile..just one.
In 10 miles, you’re almost one mile off from where you started.
What if you compounded this and every mile, you shifted by 5 degrees. Small incremental shifts…
This would lead to exponential change… massive change down the road.
If you’re a math expert, let me know… I don’t want to give you bad data.
Call to Action
Make one minor change today. What is it going to be for you?
Keep it small… but commit to it for a long time. So make sure it’s something you can do for an extended period of time.