Start Small

I had a conversation and wanted to share a little about it.

This is a conversation I have on repeat with my clients and an area that I see people struggle with all the time.

My friend called me the other day and told me she wanted to start living a healthier life. She wants to eat better, exercise more, drink more water, sleep better, etc. But she was feeling so overwhelmed with doing all the things that she wasn’t doing any of them.

She was frustrated and wanted to feel better in her own skin.

This is the number one issue clients come to me for. They know what they want to do and often have more information than they need to get started, but they are stuck in overwhelm, and can’t figure out how to begin.

Here’s the thing: creating a big picture vision of how you want your life to look is essential. And understanding why you want to make those changes is also important.

But the big picture vision may be 100 or even 1000 steps ahead of where you are now. It’s too big of a step.

You have to take that big picture vision and break it down into smaller pieces.

You have to pick one part of the vision to start with and only one.

Then, you take that one thing and break it down into even smaller parts.

Let’s say my friend’s first step was that she wanted to eat healthier. She would then look at her current life and figure out one small step she could take to get her to her goal of eating healthier.

This is when most people say, I’m going to meal plan and eat three healthy meals a day. I will also get rid of all the junk food in my house and replace it with healthy options.

That sounds like a good plan, right?

Wrong. The plan itself is good, but it’s still too many action steps. Most people will start this and then stop it after a few weeks because it’s too many moving parts.

Instead, I would ask my friend or client to start with just one of those things. Take all those ideas and pick the one you know you can do even on your worst day.

Then think about your worst day. You wake up late, kids are sick, your car broke down, picture everything that can go wrong, and decide what one small thing you could do even on that day.

That means you drink a glass of water first thing in the morning or eat a piece of fruit and some nuts for a snack.

This is where you start. You commit to doing that one small thing every day, and that’s it.

Most people start objecting because committing to something so small feels silly.

When it feels easy, then it’s the perfect starting point.

We get so obsessed with doing the most and trying to tackle everything that we don’t see that these little habits that we do every day compound over time.

You can always do more, but when you set a goal that feels simple, it’s guaranteed you will do it.

When things are simple, they are doable. And when things are doable, they become sustainable.

Try this if you’ve been struggling to create a new habit or keep stopping and starting repeatedly. I guarantee you will find success.