The Power of the Slight Change

Last week, the New York Times ran an article that talked about how walking may be helpful in maintaining brain functioning as we age. While this is interesting in itself (see article below), it got me thinking about how powerful one small change can make when held constant over time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/08/health/research/08fitness.html?src=me&ref=health

Make a Move

How would your life be different if you did one thing, every day, which was directly in line with one of your goals? Perhaps you are looking for a new job, so that one thing could be a phone call (this can work for business, social, and relationship goals as well). What a difference you could make with one phone call every day for the next week, month, or year. Some of these could help to build new relationships and others could help to grow existing ones. Either way, as long as you stayed with it, I’m willing to bet things would change for the better.

1% Better

Another way to think about this is to improve by 1% each day. This is broader, but it conveys the same message. Small but consistent movement toward a goal can create great change over time. The idea of 1% better has a nice twist to it that I like. When you increase by 1% over time, you do not grow in a linear fashion, but rather, exponentially. That means that if you stay focused, today could be the least amount of growth you ever experience again.

Of course life is not as clean cut as a nice math equation, but I think the take away from this analogy is this: experience is the currency of growth. So every day that you work toward your goal, whether you have made tangible progress or not, you have gained experience. And over time, it is your experience that is compounding, growing, and will undoubtedly lead to your success.

Take Away

So as the excitement of the New Year wears down, let’s refocus our efforts, but remember that it does not take large, life altering changes to reach our goals. Rather, it takes small, but CONSISTENT movement in one direction that will lead to the most meaningful and powerful results.