Small Steps. . .
If you’re not currently moving forward in your happiness, whatever that definition is for you then what the heck are you doing? Your vigor for life will drain out slowly like honey from a broken jar if you aren’t making daily progress in some way. You don’t have to set records, but you owe it to yourself to live the best life you can. So how can you do it?
The determining factors of your success or failure to make progress are simply: What strategies are you using to move towards your goals? And, are you succeeding consistently with these strategies?
If you don’t say yes to the second question, you’ll underperform your potential. You’ll be a confused mess of ups and downs. I know because I’ve been there. I don’t mean ups and downs as in the general nature of life’s unpredictability, I mean ups and downs in doing 100% achievable things. You’ll have downs when it’s possible to have 100% ups in an area. For example, if you want to read every day, there is no reason to everfail that goal. The same goes for writing, exercising, your diet, and anything else you can control.
Our living standards are based on our history (and habits). That’s where the word “standard” comes from—it’s your standard way of living. A motivational speaker will tell you to raise your standard to do more and be more, but isn’t that what we generally try to do anyway? Who isn’t trying to improve themselves in ways that matter to them? Is a speech encouraging us to “be great” enough to change us? No. No. NO!
This is why strategy matters. Your life strategy is your chosen method for leveraging your current skills and habits into something greater. Our key lesson here is that BIG goals require many SMALL steps.
It would be nice to win the lottery, write a bestselling book, lose a huge amount of weight, travel to every country in the world, or [fill in the blank]. But wanting these big wins is detrimental to achieving them. Change your desire to small wins—saving an extra $5 a day, writing 100 words a day, exercising a little bit every day, or planning a single trip. When you pursue small, consistent victories, they become bigger victories.
Small steps aren’t a fad. They aren’t a gimmick. They can work for every person and they’re the key to changing your life.
If you want to go deeper into the world of small steps in the right direction and how they can enable you to develop powerful habits to last a lifetime, make the best investment of your life and embrace small habits that lead you to bigger outcomes and mindsets.
Whether you use buddhist methods, science, or experience as your basis, all signs point to small steps in the right direction as being the most effective strategy for taking action, and growing in postive ways consistently.
Peace and Love, Jim
#smallsteps #thedailybuddha
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