WHILE YOU WOULD do just fine if you only followed the first five principles of this book, Principle 6, Start Small, is simply a way to ensure the greatest likelihood of success for the rest of the changes.
Principle 6: Start new habits in small increments to ensure success.
Oftentimes people are enthusiastic about making changes—whether it’s about implementing a new productivity system or starting a new exercise program—so they start out with big ambitions.
The problem is that that enthusiasm often runs out of steam after a week or two, and the goal comes to failure. That’s what happens with almost every New Year’s resolution—people start out with a lot of enthusiasm but it dies down by the end of January.
The solution is Principle 6: Start Small. Follow this principle with everything you do: with any goal, with any habit change, with any change in your life.
I’ve proven this principle over and over again in my life changes. When I start an exercise program, I will start with one that’s as easy as possible, even if I know I can do more. When I start with a new habit, I start with just a tiny habit change, even when I think I can handle more. When I decided to start waking earlier, I started by waking only fifteen minutes earlier.
WHY STARTING SMALL WORKS
People often skip Principle 6, because they don’t really understand why it’s so important. Here are some of the main reasons that Starting Small works so well:
- It narrows your focus. Focus, as we discussed in the section on Principle 4, is incredibly important in getting anything done. If you start an enterprise or life change trying to tackle a lot at once, you spread your focus and decrease your effectiveness. But by starting small, you keep your focus narrowed, and therefore increase your power.
- It keeps your energy and enthusiasm going for longer. By starting out doing less than you can actually handle, you build up energy and enthusiasm, kind of like water building up behind a dam. That built-up energy and enthusiasm ensures that you don’t run out of steam early on, but can keep going for much longer.
- It’s easier to handle. Easier is better, especially in the beginning. If the change you’re making is hard to stick to, you are making it more likely that you’ll fail.
- You ensure success. Choose something so small that success is almost guaranteed. Sure, a small success is not as satisfying as a big success, but it’s only small in the short term. If you start out with a small success, you can build upon it, get another small success, and build upon that, and so on—until you have a series of small successes that add up to a very large success. And that’s much better than a large failure.
- Gradual change is longer-lasting. Think of dieting—when you go on a severe, drastic diet and you lose forty pounds in two months, it feels pretty great, but more often than not those forty pounds will come back, and then some. But if you do small changes—perhaps one to two pounds a week—those pounds are much more likely to stay off. This has been proven repeatedly in weight loss studies and it works with any kind of change. Make gradual changes, in a series of small steps over time, and you’re more likely to stick to those changes than if you attempt a big change all at once.
HOW TO APPLY STARTING SMALL
So when and with what do you start small? Always, and with anything. Any habit change you undertake, any exercise or productivity or life change, any goal or project or task—start small.
Here are but a few examples:
- Exercise: Start with five to ten minutes a day, instead of thirty.
- Waking early: Start by waking fifteen minutes earlier, instead of an hour or two.
- Productivity: Start by trying to focus on the task at hand for five to ten minutes at a time.
- E-mail effectiveness: Start by limiting yourself to checking e-mail just a couple fewer times a day.
- Healthy eating: Start by making just one change to your diet, instead of doing a major diet overhaul.
- A major project: Start with just one small task from the project, instead of trying to tackle everything at once. Then go to the next small task, and so on.
- Decluttering: Start with just one drawer, instead of trying to declutter your entire office or home.