Small Step

Transcript

I’d like to talk to you about the principle of starting small.

There’s an excellent book called Atomic Habits by James Clear. Atoms being this very small thing, once seen as indivisible. Not anymore but it seemed like the smallest indivisible unit.

It has this great force inside of it.

In the book he talks about the power of starting small.

For example you want to start getting fit but you don’t know what to do. Maybe go to the gym but might feel uncomfortable. There’s a lot of obstacles to get in the way. Why not start with the smallest thing?

One pushup a day or a few times a week or if you’re jogging putting on your jogging shoes and just starting with the bare minimum.

Of course in many cases once you start with one push-up you maybe think to do 2, 5 or 10. Or you put on your running shoes and you think maybe why don’t I go for a run?

Or you resolve to go to the gym for 5 minutes and you say “Now that I’m here, why don’t I do something?”

Do 10 minutes of exercise and as your knowledge grows your passion grows and you start to get into it more and more.

Clear makes these points about identity.

A lot of the time it’s not necessarily the physical factors in our lives that hold us back from doing things. A lot of times it’s the ideas that hold us back from ourselves and of course if we do start to make these small movements, one push-up at a time, then we start to slowly change our idea of self.

It ties into this Buddhist idea that we have only 3 tools.

Internal sensations, thoughts and feelings.
Speech
Actions

These are the only 3 things we can use in this world.

So the idea is…this is one way of looking at it. This is a perspective that is sometimes talked about in Wat Tham Krabok in the temple where I was in Thailand.

The idea is if you change one of these things then you will have a sort of momentum on the other two. If you begin to change your thinking, you might change how you speak and that will reflect itself in your actions.

Of course we don’t want to be hypocrites. It’s normally best to think and talk more about ourselves than about others.

We have this power by beginning with these small habits. This one push-up a day.

We begin to think a bit differently. Maybe we think this isn’t such a big deal and we begin to have this image of ourselves as someone who works out or is a healthy fit person.

Slowly like a glacier, slowly steadily moving with great force we begin to change who we are. We begin to transform.

Of course I’ve mentioned many times this formula.

Insight plus action equals transformation.

When you take and receive inspiration, insight and a vision of your life and whatever small form begin to move towards it, you have enacted and manifested and brought into reality that vision.

Even just a little bit of bringing some magic into this world.

Maybe there’s something you can do today, something maybe you’ve been putting off. Maybe it’s not a whole thing but partial thing like a call or sending a message or journal. Sitting for meditation for even just a minute.

Is there something small you can do today that might just maybe have a positive effect for the rest of your life?

Thank you for listening, thank you for starting small.

Receiving insight and taking action. Thank you for being transformed.