The Significance of Small Steps

Oh, my goodness, it is hard to believe that we just passed the half way mark for 2022.  How are you feeing about your 2022 goals? You know the one’s you might have set back in January.

I am wondering if you, like me, had a moment reflecting on what I aspired to earlier this year and where I am now. When I glanced at my list, I started to check off the things I had accomplished. However, before I started to pat myself on the back, the list of what I haven’t done was fairly long and took hold of my attention. Then the inevitable self-doubt and self-critiques started to come through. I started to question - is it too late to get some of these aspirations going? I am here to share that it’s not too late and you’re not alone in thinking  what else might I accomplish over the second half of this year and what might be getting in the way.

So I am trying to launch something new, you know how we have “Christmas in July” slogans, I am trying to launch the “mid-year reset”. Like January, July can be another month of the year to spend time reflecting on what really stops us from going after exactly what we want.

What I have noticed in coaching others and in myself, is that we can be pampered in the “bigness” of a goal – like say learning a new language or getting to our goal weight. I also see this a lot when working with graduate students who have to write a thesis or dissertation. Looking at the goal as in “complete a thesis” can be overwhelming. It can be hard in these cases to see the simple, actionable strategies towards goal completion and achievement. Often underlying that are feelings of inadequacy or fear of starting or putting yourself out there. Why might that be? Fear of failure and fear of criticism can stop us from even beginning.

We all tend to want success that doesn’t require a lot of effort. Whether we are hoping to achieve our goal weight, learn a new skill, grow our business or finish a thesis, the fundamentals remain the same.

Often the strategy I use and recommend to others is the power of the small step or small actions.  I was inspired by Teresa Amabile and Steven Kramer (Harvard professors) who have researched the importance of the small actions in making daily progress. They authored the book The Progress Principle: Using Small Wings to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. What I appreciated about their approach was the importance of celebrating progress every day. Although, this may seem easy to do, it can be easy to ignore those small steps forward that help us accomplish our goals. The other thing they advise is think about any setbacks that have gotten in the way of goal achievement as learning opportunities to refine the goal.

Given social media and media in general that glorifies famous individuals as seemingly overnight successes, we can fall into the trap that we aren’t achieving fast enough or enough. We don’t often see the many baby steps or the chunks that were required to get there.

Sometimes looking at the big picture or the goal list, can be daunting. Much like the benefits of regular and consistent exercise isn’t noticeable day to day, there is a cumulative effect over time. We definitely don’t want to “sweat the small stuff” but small incremental progress can have huge impacts on our confidence, build momentum and get us closer to achieving our goals before we ring in the new year and start another list of goals.

I am here to encourage us all to take another step towards the goal you set out for this year, you might just find that you are okay to take one more step, and before you know you have some momentum going!

By Shailoo Bedi, BA MA MLS PhD, IRG Associate Coach