Taking Small Steps to Achieve Big Changes

When you're busy creating a side hustle it can be all-consuming and you might be tempted to put your health and fitness development on hold. The problem with that approach is that you are only going to be storing up problems for the future.

Perhaps you've actually tried to start an exercise routine prior to working on your new project and just couldn't get motivated or couldn't find the time. You've therefore told yourself that if you couldn't do it then you certainly can't do it now, when you have even less time and your main priority is your side hustle.

Maybe you followed the flawed saying  'Go big or go home'? In fact if you chose to go big you were more likely to go home. In other words if you tried to make one big step you were almost certainly setting yourself up for failure.

The trick is to make very small changes, ones that are so tiny that doing them will take you a minute or two and will hardly seem worth it. In fact they will be very far from the ultimate goal that you want to achieve and use so little energy that you will struggle to find an excuse for not doing them. When you have acted out this tiny habit, no matter how small, you will feel some sense of achievement and achievement is motivational.

Let’s look at an example. Perhaps you want to get stronger as you've heard that we lose muscle mass and have balance problems as we age, two factors which contribute to falls in later life. I expect this is something that you might have tried to address in the past, perhaps by going to the gym. The problem is that committing to working out for an hour three times a week is a 'go big' approach which is why it is rarely successful.

To set yourself up for success you need to find a 'go small' approach. A tiny action that you could take today and gradually build on over time, such as doing five squats whilst waiting for the kettle to boil. It may not seem much, but you're more likely to do those squats than make the effort to go to the gym.  So whatever habit or behaviour you want to start, at the same time as having time for your side hustle, remember -  use this 'go small' approach and over time I guarantee you will be able to see big changes.