Small change doesn’t feel as important as it is

Small changes in life can be meaningless or they can be life changing. The variable that determines how important small changes become is in consistency.

If, one day, we make a small change in our life and then go back to our old ways that small change is probably meaningless in the grand scheme of things. If we make a small change but take that new step in our lives over and over again and slowly add more small steps, the output can be incredible.

When it comes to systems thinking, there are two main elements that almost everyone who studies systems thinking will come across. They are fundamental elements of systems.

They are feedback loops. There are two different types of feedback loops. One is a balancing feedback loop that works to maintain equilibrium in a system and the other is the reinforcing feedback loop.

We experience both of those on a daily basis. The balancing feedback loop exists to make sure we keep doing things the same.

If we make a small change but don’t continue to make that small change then the balancing feedback loops in your life will quickly come forward and make sure you get right back to your old systems and habits, erasing that small change.

But when we do this small change consistently we start to change the balancing feedback loop. Over time this small step could become an ingrained habit, at which point it is a balancing feedback loop. In other words, over time we start to change the balancing feedback loops in life to incorporate the new step.

Reinforcing feedback loops work to grow or tear down something. If we make a bad decision at work and get reprimanded and then develop a poor attitude we start a new loop of behavior that goes from poor attitude to poor performance to reprimand to poor attitude to poor performance to reprimand. This cycles through and slowly gets more and more powerful.

Conversely we can build a positive reinforcing feedback loop. If we do a great job on a project and get praised, it will change our attitude to be more positive. Then the cycle looks like this – hard work on a project, good performance, praise, hard work on a project, good performance, praise. This goes on and on and continues to build at each pass through the cycle.

So when we take a small change and do it over and over again we start to add a new balancing feedback loop. If we then add another small step and follow the same process we will build more balancing feedback loops. We can keep doing this over and over again.

What happens is that we start to build positive reinforcing feedback loops. We start to leverage that previous small change that we incorporated into our normal routines and habits and leverage it. We do more and more and start to significantly improve our life through those small changes.

So small changes should not be ignored. Within those small changes lies the ability to greatly improve our life. But the key is whether or not we stick with it. Consistency becomes the factor as to whether that small change is something small or something with great output over time.