As you embark on the new year, you might be tempted to use it as an occasion to make wholesale change in your life. My advice? Don't!

Wholesale, grand scale change almost never works. You run at it fueled by an initial adrenaline rush, maybe feel that first blush of successful change, and then almost inevitably start to falter as old patterns start to take over again. 

Instead of going for that wholesale, grand scale change, do something different. Tap into the BIG power of small. Twenty small steps in pursuit of a big change is exponentially more likely to bring the results you want than one gargantuan one. 

Training for change

One way to think about it is using your time through the year to train for a marathon. Except in this case you're not training for a marathon, you're training for a substantial positive change in your life. 

If you're training for a marathon, what is likely to be more successful, breaking your training into ongoing, consistent effort or trying to cram all your conditioning into the beginning of the year? 

Clearly, if you do the latter with a marathon, you have a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding. Your chances aren't much better taking that approach to making a positive change. 

Instead of making a wholesale change, think about the small changes you can make that would add up to the larger change. For example, let's say you're tempted to make a sweeping commitment to eating healthily. Great! 

Real change is like playing with LEGOs

To tap into the big power of small, resist the urge for instant gratification. Instead, brainstorm what building blocks to that change could look like.

So maybe your first change is in your level of understanding and awareness. You decide to educate yourself on what your body needs and the impact of various foods on both your physical and mental state. You can start incorporating more healthy foods into the picture as you feel called to, but it isn't your focus.

Maybe the next step is to simply commit to eating the recommended minimums on fruits and vegetables. No wholesale change to your diet. Just adding the positive impact of nutritious food. 

Maybe another step would be to minimize your sugar consumption, or to start drinking more water. 

As you make small changes and give them time to gel, you can start building on them. If you take the approach to change I talked about in yesterday's post, looking at it as a year-long project, by the end of a year's time you can have made significant and - even more importantly - long-lasting change. 

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst