Every year many of us focus on things we don’t like about ourselves and vow to change those things. We sign up with a fitness studio. Begin a new diet that – we are certain – is going to work this time. Join a new interest group that we’ve been meaning to do for a long while.

Then we begin – the fitness routine, the diet, the new interest – with great enthusiasm, even to the point of overdoing it. After a few weeks, we are so into this new routine that we notice other daily important items being neglected – like work. In response, instead of backing off a little, we drop it all.

And that’s the end of it for another year.

If this scenario is familiar to you, and you want to do things differently this time, try doing something minor, something small, that is a little bit better than not doing anything at all.

Instead of a new fitness program – a brisk 30-minute walk every morning. Instead of a new diet – cutting out snacks after 9pm. Instead of a new interest group that requires a weekly commitment – something that interests you and that meets at a time and frequency that you know you can commit to long term.

Or, if that ends up being too much all at once, start even smaller: take 10 quiet minutes each morning enjoying that quiet, perhaps deciding what you want to focus on that day. Walk around your house once. Add a salad to lunch.

Even a small change, incorporated into each day, adds up to something substantial and worth-while. Need more support with this? Reach out to me here and let’s talk.

The 1-minute secret to forming a new habit