Managing Your Life and Business By Making Small Changes

Today’s featured article was written by Fairy Godmother, Mary Wilson Burkett of Coaching Associates

For most of us, change is difficult. Frustrating. Annoying. Too hard. But I heard something recently that I thought made making change in life easier. Stop trying to make huge changes all at once. Make smaller changes, one thing at a time.

For instance, I saw a woman on television talk about losing over 100 pounds. How did she do it? By changing one thing at a time. The first step was to get up early and walk. At first, she barely made it around her block. But she kept trying and gradually went farther, a couple of miles, and picked up her pace. Ninety days later? She was down 30 pounds! At that point she hit a plateau so she changed one more thing. No eating after 6:30 in the evening. If she attended an evening family event, she just stopped eating at 6:30. No matter where she was or what she was doing, she stopped at exactly 6:30 p.m. The result? Another 20 pounds before hitting a plateau. So now she had changed just two things and lost 50 pounds! Half of the goal.

I’ve been thinking about this changing one thing at a time when it comes to keeping my home in order. We get so busy, working, traveling, children and grandchildren coming and going, that things get out of control. So I’m going to change one thing. My husband is notorious for not putting things away after he uses them so the first thing I’m going to change is I’m going to stop expecting him to do that. He’s an adult and even though I’ve asked him to pick up stuff, it’s not going to happen. So each night before going to bed, I’m going to do a “walk through”. I’ll pick up anything that’s out of place and put it where it belongs. That way, the new day starts with everything in its place. Who knows? Maybe it will even inspire my husband to put things away properly. Of course, I’m not going to hold my breath. But the goal will be accomplished. A more orderly home and all I’ve done is one thing.

Maybe there are other areas of life that will take just one thing to improve. I’m sure we can all apply this idea of changing just one thing to every area of life, including our businesses. Change really doesn’t have to be hard or frustrating. It takes just one thing.