Happy New Year -A Little Bit (or bite) at a Time

So I have always been big into goals, New Year's Resolutions and all those things it is real easy to beat yourself up on when you don't complete ... or do it more slowly then you would like... or worse yet, never even start.

I am always looking for ways to get myself moving along on things, especially the starting part. I recently read a book that is already changing the way I think.

"One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way" by Robert Maurer. The book revolves around a Japanese technique that shows why taking small steps, especially on the biggest, hardest, scariest tasks, works and gets you started... and keeps you moving forward.

Here is an example about me. I (supposedly) health-walk every day. I go on streaks where I am great (almost obsessive), but when it gets broken I have a hard time getting back into the pattern. I also beat myself up for not doing it and falling behind. One day I realized that if I did not have the 40 minutes I needed to do my normal route, I just wrote it off, did nothing and then got angry and felt bad. Right around the time I read this book I realized--why don't I just walk a shorter distance on days I do not have enough time? Something is better than nothing. So now there have been days that I have only walked 20 minutes. Guess what? I still felt better than if I had not gone at all.

This may seem obvious to you, but I will guess there is something in your life you do the same thing with. Mine is exercise. Yours may be smoking, or not enough sleep, or taking that one step to change your career and your life.

It is like that kid's riddle:" How do you eat an elephant?"

One bite at a time.

Happy New Year!