highly sensitive power

Preparing for an earthquake is too freaky. I only accomplished it by taking what I called nanosteps, steps so infinitesimal I was done before the heebie-jeebies set in. Author and artist SARK, in her book Make Your Creative Dreams Real, calls such small steps microMOVEments. Robert Maurer has gone even further and written a book on the topic of kaizen, “the Japanese technique of achieving great and lasting success through small, steady steps.”

Maurer’s One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way inspires through the author’s humbleness and the examples provided. Do you have trouble exercising regularly? March in place in front of the television for one minute every day for a month. Do you have trouble keeping the house clean? Set a timer for five minutes and tidy up, stopping when the timer goes off. Are you looking for love but not finding it? Spend two minutes a day musing on the question What would my ideal mate be like?

The surprising thing is that small steps often lead to lasting success when big steps don’t. It’s all about sneaking successive tiny steps past the fight-or-flight response to the fear triggered by the prospect of big change.

Instead of longing for real change that never seems to happen, tap into the awesome power of the tip-toe.

“The little steps of kaizen are a kind of stealth solution…. As your small steps continue and your cortex starts working, the brain begins to create ‘software’ for your desired change, actually laying down new nerve pathways and building new habits. Soon, your resistance to change begins to weaken. Where once you might have been daunted by change, your new mental software will have you moving toward your ultimate goal at a pace that may well exceed your expectations.”

~ Robert Maurer, One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way