A few weeks ago my husband Glenn and I each passed the 1,000,000 step mark on WalkerTracker, the web-based program we use to track our pedometer steps. Let’s think about that – a million steps. If someone had told me in April that I was setting out to walk a million steps, I would have sat back down and waited for the urge to pass. I didn’t have a long-term “total number of steps” goal; the goal was 10,000 steps a day to improve the odds on croaking from heart failure, the disease of choice in my family. But isn’t that actually how we build our lives? One step at a time, one bite at a time, one decision at a time. Our ultimate destination is the accumulation of tiny decisions and actions.
An aircraft off by one or two degrees in flight pattern ends up on a different continent. So do our relationships, careers, finances and health.
It’s only a cupcake/small fight/a few days late. What difference does it make? We rationalize to ourselves. I’ll make up for it tomorrow. Maybe I’ll be inspired, or some miracle will occur. I’ll meet Mr. Perfect, get a better job, or win the lottery.
Grand plans for reformation are all very well. Thinking big and dreaming deep can be inspiring and uplifting. Getting there? Tiny steps, one after the other.
We may long for the epic intervention, or the instant time stands still with such clarity that all is revealed. In reality, even if they come our way, those life-changing moments of clarity and insight are over in a flash. Then we’re back to putting one foot in front of the other, in whatever direction we’re facing. Perhaps the blinding insight points us in a different direction. We still have to take action.
Identify one small thing you could do differently today, this hour. Not tomorrow, or next week. Want to get fit? In One Small Step Can Change Your Life Robert Maurer, Ph.D. describes a client, Julie, who starts her path to fitness by running in place for one minute a day while watching TV. Success. So she takes on a little more, and a little more. Bit by bit she increases her activity until she’s fully engaged in exercise and healthy eating. The payoff? She feels great and has a lot more energy to enjoy her life.
Dr. Maurer attributes successful change efforts like Julie’s to “don’t wake the amygdala”, the brain’s panic button, triggered when we try to change too much, too fast. The key is to make changes so small that the amygdala remains quiescent, and we sneak the changes by it without triggering our freeze, fight or flight mechanism, often manifested as avoid and procrastinate when we plan to do things requiring significant effort or disruption.
In The Happiness Advantage, Shawn Achor describes this as the “Zorro Circle”. Zorro was not always the dashing man of action he appeared in the TV program. In his youth, he was broken and desperate until his master, Don Diego, took him in hand and taught him self-mastery. On the dirt floor of a cave, Don Diego drew a circle around Zorro and said “master everything within that circle first”. Draw your own Zorro Circle. Then expand it gradually.
What are you going to do today? Not tomorrow. Not next week. Today. Just one step in a different direction. Maybe I’ll see you on WalkerTracker!