Tiny wins are micro-successes that you target and achieve each day.
Equally important, you acknowledge them as successes to yourself. Do not diminish them or disregard them, elevate them and protect them. They are the foundation of great things to come.
There's a menu - no, a buffet - of choices every day of small but vital and powerful things you can do to create your tiny win. This blog will help guide you there, every day.
Inertia.
Inertia in our lives is born from fear. It is reinforced by the status quo bias, a cognitive bias where people tend to do nothing or maintain the previous course in spite of evidence that a change in direction would be a much better decision.
Why?
Because we fear the negative possibilities of what might happen if we change course more than the endless rewards of taking a different path.
It might be why you are in - what you consider to be - a dead-end job, an unhealthy state of being, lonely, jealous or angry at the world. The fear of something terrible happening if you change direction is greater than the promise of a better future.
Inertia and the status quo bias devastate many lives that would otherwise be rich and fulfilling rather than asphyxiated with fear and a paralyzed spirit.
Here's the good news.
You don't need vast amounts of will power or hours every day to quickly escape inertia and the status quo bias.
You need tiny wins.
Small successes jolt your subconscious. They reduce the fear of changing course because they are a change of course, and that change was successful!
When you're driving on the highway, how much effort does it take to change lanes? It's just a slight turn of the wheel, not an arm-over-arm effort. But now you're in a lane going in a different direction, and it doesn't take long to be a long way from where you used to be.
Tiny wins are like changing lanes on the highway - small efforts with a powerful and permanent result. Enough tiny wins not only transform you, they can change the world.
Amnesty International is worldwide human rights and justice group with 7 million members. They feverishly act for those suffering injustice anywhere in the world.
It was started by a lawyer named Peter Benenson.
Did he wake-up one day and say, "Hey, I'm going to start a worldwide organization with 7 million members to influence governments around the world and save the innocent?"
If he did, I suspect he would have quickly found himself in the fetal position watching the equivalent of YouTube cat videos in 1961. That kind of "win" is too overwhelming, too hard, too expensive, and would have a good chance of ruining your life.
Here's what Peter did.
He was reading a newspaper and caught a story of two Portuguese students who raised a glass to toast liberty and freedom. They were promptly imprisoned. For seven years!
Outraged, Peter decided that he was going to sit down and write a really great letter with a catchy title. In his letter, he would ask other people to write the Portuguese government and tell them to (I'm paraphrasing here) "go to hell." That was his first tiny win.
Letter written, mission accomplished for the day.
Next he aimed to have it published as a letter to an editor. He put it in the mail the following day.
Mission accomplished for the day.
The Observer newspaper in the United Kingdom liked it and published "The Forgotten Prisoners" as an article. That was his next tiny win.
He also wanted to write letters to the Portuguese government and aimed to find other people to help him write letters. He found six others. They called themselves "Amnesty International" and started a letter writing campaign.
There's a an easy win - write letters over a few beers in the man cave (or the equivalent in 1961 London).
His article was so moving, and his idea of a letter writing campaign so compelling, that within a short time there were groups of letter writers all over the world under the umbrella of Amnesty International.
Peter targeted a few tiny wins because they were easily achievable. What he may not have known was that those tiny wins were the pebbles that started an avalanche of enormous success.
I'm not talking financial success here (though I'm sure Peter did quite well for himself). I'm talking about massive impact and satisfaction - the kind of success that gives you a smile at the end of your days.
Equally important, you acknowledge them as successes to yourself. Do not diminish them or disregard them, elevate them and protect them. They are the foundation of great things to come.
There's a menu - no, a buffet - of choices every day of small but vital and powerful things you can do to create your tiny win. This blog will help guide you there, every day.
Inertia.
Inertia in our lives is born from fear. It is reinforced by the status quo bias, a cognitive bias where people tend to do nothing or maintain the previous course in spite of evidence that a change in direction would be a much better decision.
Why?
Because we fear the negative possibilities of what might happen if we change course more than the endless rewards of taking a different path.
It might be why you are in - what you consider to be - a dead-end job, an unhealthy state of being, lonely, jealous or angry at the world. The fear of something terrible happening if you change direction is greater than the promise of a better future.
Inertia and the status quo bias devastate many lives that would otherwise be rich and fulfilling rather than asphyxiated with fear and a paralyzed spirit.
Here's the good news.
You don't need vast amounts of will power or hours every day to quickly escape inertia and the status quo bias.
You need tiny wins.
Small successes jolt your subconscious. They reduce the fear of changing course because they are a change of course, and that change was successful!
When you're driving on the highway, how much effort does it take to change lanes? It's just a slight turn of the wheel, not an arm-over-arm effort. But now you're in a lane going in a different direction, and it doesn't take long to be a long way from where you used to be.
Tiny wins are like changing lanes on the highway - small efforts with a powerful and permanent result. Enough tiny wins not only transform you, they can change the world.
Amnesty International is worldwide human rights and justice group with 7 million members. They feverishly act for those suffering injustice anywhere in the world.
It was started by a lawyer named Peter Benenson.
Did he wake-up one day and say, "Hey, I'm going to start a worldwide organization with 7 million members to influence governments around the world and save the innocent?"
If he did, I suspect he would have quickly found himself in the fetal position watching the equivalent of YouTube cat videos in 1961. That kind of "win" is too overwhelming, too hard, too expensive, and would have a good chance of ruining your life.
Here's what Peter did.
He was reading a newspaper and caught a story of two Portuguese students who raised a glass to toast liberty and freedom. They were promptly imprisoned. For seven years!
Outraged, Peter decided that he was going to sit down and write a really great letter with a catchy title. In his letter, he would ask other people to write the Portuguese government and tell them to (I'm paraphrasing here) "go to hell." That was his first tiny win.
Letter written, mission accomplished for the day.
Next he aimed to have it published as a letter to an editor. He put it in the mail the following day.
Mission accomplished for the day.
The Observer newspaper in the United Kingdom liked it and published "The Forgotten Prisoners" as an article. That was his next tiny win.
He also wanted to write letters to the Portuguese government and aimed to find other people to help him write letters. He found six others. They called themselves "Amnesty International" and started a letter writing campaign.
There's a an easy win - write letters over a few beers in the man cave (or the equivalent in 1961 London).
His article was so moving, and his idea of a letter writing campaign so compelling, that within a short time there were groups of letter writers all over the world under the umbrella of Amnesty International.
Peter targeted a few tiny wins because they were easily achievable. What he may not have known was that those tiny wins were the pebbles that started an avalanche of enormous success.
I'm not talking financial success here (though I'm sure Peter did quite well for himself). I'm talking about massive impact and satisfaction - the kind of success that gives you a smile at the end of your days.
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