Slow down and take it one step at a time

One of the benefits of the systems and habits approach to improvement is the fact that it allows us to break off pieces of the journey towards betterment. Instead of trying to tackle everything at once we simply tackle one step at a time.

This allows us to take on a different mindset. Instead of getting overwhelmed at all of the future challenges that will certainly come our way, we focus on the current challenge only. We work solely to tackle this problem in front of us.

I have seen how this approach works and I have also seen firsthand how not having this mindset sets us up for failure.

When I was in my early twenties I was overweight and lazy. I was struggling to figure out what I should be doing in life so I took the path of least resistance.

The problem is that this led me in a direction in life that was leading me towards constant failure and struggle. I could sense it but it seemed like whatever I did to try and change just re-emphasized the path I was on.

For example, when I realized I needed to start exercising and losing weight to become healthy, I would follow the same pattern each time. I would get myself all motivated and pumped up.

Then I would start. I would try to use that motivation to push me towards new extremes in exercise and fitness. I would push myself too far and each day try to outdo the previous day.

But I always faltered with this approach. The first couple of days were usually fine but after a few days or a few weeks I would always fall back to my old habits. It was as if my “motivated” mindset was working against me. The motivation was driven by the thought of the end result. So what happened was that I put all of the work ahead in my conscious attention all the time. I wasn’t just tackling that day’s workout; I felt I was tackling every day’s workout going forward. This eventually became too much.

A better approach is to break off pieces of the journey and focus solely on the step you are on. If you are just starting to change your habits, then work hard to do a smaller chunk of the work. If you have built up some decent habits, start to leverage those and build on them. If you have years of good habits, then look to find more extreme ways to use those to provide value.

I took this approach to quit smoking. I didn’t tell myself I was quitting smoking forever, I just said to myself that today wasn’t going to be the day that I went back to smoking. I didn’t care about tomorrow. I only focused on today.

I took this approach to build up an exercise routine in the morning. At first I was only doing 10 minutes on an exercise bike every day. But over time I added to the routine and adjusted the routine to lose over 40 pounds.

I took this approach to pay off $10,000 in credit card debt. I used this approach to earn a masters degree. I used (and still use) this approach to build my career and continue to grow as a leader.

I am currently reading a book by an incredibly accomplished Admiral in the U.S. military, William H. McRaven. In his book, Sea Stories: My Life in Special Operations, he talks about his training to be a Navy SEAL. This is notorious for being one of the most challenging things one can do and most people who try ultimately fail because it is too difficult.

He talks about breaking down the challenges to tackle the next step in the journey. He says, “”One evolution at a time. One evolution at a time. These words would stick with me for the rest of my career. They summed up a philosophy for dealing with difficult times. Most BUD/S trainees dropped out because their event horizon was too far in the distance. They struggled not with the problem of the moment, but with what they perceived would be an endless series of problems, which they believed they couldn’t overcome. When you tackled just one problem, one event, or, in the vernacular of BUD/S training, one evolution at a time, then the difficult became manageable. Like many things in life, success in BUD/S didn’t always go to the strongest, the fastest, or the smartest. It went to the man who faltered, who failed, who stumbled, but who persevered, who got up and kept moving. Always moving forward, one evolution at a time.”

But we don’t have to be trying to become a Navy SEAL for this mindset to help in life. We can use it all the time.

This allows us to keep making progress even if we aren’t making as much progress as we had hoped before we started. We can work through challenges instead of quitting every time we hit a tough spot.

If you are setting goals and finding that you can’t seem to stick with it, then shift your mindset to start to focus on each step and only allow yourself to concentrate on the current step and getting past it.

You will be amazed at how much this can help. It can allow you to continue just long enough for the work to become a routine and then habit. It can become an automatic act without much thought. When it does you will start to be able to build on it. But today, just focus on working through today’s challenges.