
You know, we haven’t talked about the power of slow, small, daily actions for a while.
So, let’s assume that we all know that small, consistent, daily habits lead to larger impact later on. It almost doesn’t matter what category, I think we’d probably all agree that this is mostly true.
Yet, despite knowing this, it’s so easy to fall into the trap of setting huge, audacious goals.
Let’s look at New Year’s Resolutions. Today is April 2nd. How’s the resolution going? I think it might be worth unpacking that sometime soon since we’ve still got the rest of the year to make things happen.
One of the most difficult parts of goal setting, for me, is keeping the goals small. I get so wide-eyed. I want to do more. I even believe that I can do it!
But one of my favorite things about getting older is being endowed with the gift of data. The older I get, the more data I have on myself. I can see patterns more clearly and it’s easier to catch myself falling into a bad recurring habit. I hear people complain about getting older, but so far I really think the benefits outweigh the challenges.
One of my mentors said it this way:
“It’s better to have a bunch of wins that are small than a bunch of big failures.”
That’s not to say that there’s no benefit from trying to do something big, but the bread and butter of our actions should be small. It’s this platform of base-wins that helps build the confidence to take on larger goals and not be crushed when we fail.
In this way, it’s not really about the failure itself, it’s about developing the immunity to failure so that we can keep moving forward with confidence.
So, I’m curious. How’s the New Year’s Resolution coming? As we start the second quarter of the year, it’s the perfect time to reevaluate, recalibrate, and refocus.