Small changes over time = BIG results

Small changes over time equals big results. A cliche perhaps, but one that holds more than a glimmer of truth. But if you still don’t believe that, then consider the building of a house. You know the design and style of the house that you want, you have chosen the block of land where the new house is going to sit, plans have been drawn up and approved. You’ve gotten the builder, the plumber, the painter, the roofer, the concrete, the sand and the bricks organised. Each of these little steps has gotten you to the point of starting the building process, all without laying a single brick.
 
And then the building starts, and at first it seems like it is going to take forever, you want the bricklayer to lay more bricks, you want to see the walls up and the roof go on. But with each single brick the completion of the building project is one tiny step forward.
 
If you try and do or change too many things at the same time, you may find yourself being completely overwhelmed by the whole process and when that happens, you will find yourself retreating back into old patterns of behaviour. How many times have you set New Year’s Resolutions on January 1st only to find yourself forgetting the changes you wanted to make disappearing through the door of the bakery by February one?
 
However, little steps means you can re-evaluate your position, you can make minor changes to where you are in your life and on the path that you have taken and sooner rather than later you will find yourself in a whole new state of mind and body.
 
Question – if you are overweight, how long did it take you to reach the point you are now? Something tells me it would have taken months if not years of making the wrong choices with regards to food and exercise to reach the point where you are now. So how on earth can you expect to get rid of the problem in just a few short weeks?
 
Except people give themselves ridiculous goals and hopeless timelines and expect their bodies and more importantly their minds to give up bad behaviours overnight. As you will know if you have ever been on this particular treadmill of life, it is the consistent practice of going to the gym 3 or 4 times a week over a considerable period of time that can have the biggest benefits.
 
Eating 7 apples on a Sunday does not make up for the apples that you should have eaten during the week. So bingeing on either excess or famine type strategies will not have a positive effect.
 
Or take the goal of running a marathon. Can you imagine lining up with the thousands of other competitors without putting in some planning, preparation and a lot of training miles first? Of course not, well I hope not at any rate. If you don’t know how fit you are, if you have no idea how long it would take you to run 26 and a bit miles, you have no way of knowing where you are, or whether you are in the right race.
 
Now believe me, I use the dieting and exercising analogy a lot, because it the one that most people seem to relate to. But this holds true for anything that you are struggling with at this moment in time. Not studying all week, then going out with your friends and partying all night, only to throw in a couple of all nighters in the hope that your brain can cope with the cramming is not the best way to get the grades you need to go to university, which is why we need to spend time and re-evaluate where we are on our personal paths.
 
Re-evaluate your goals:
 
Problems can and do arise with any project, so it is vital that you understand there will be the potential for detours along the way and be prepared for them when they arrive. Therefore it is vital that you check, not only your progress along the way, but whether you still want to be on that particular project at all. However, the main reason is that it is so easy to get nudged off course little by little. Like a small shift in the wind, catching the sail. Can you imagine what your new house would look like if the builder didn’t use measures and checks against the previous work, to make sure the new layer of bricks is in the right place? Little by little, each course of bricks would be laid slightly off centre, and instead of a brand new house, you would end up with something that looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
 
But there is another important reason why we need to check our current position against where we say we wanted to be. Sometimes other priorities take their place, or we move the goal posts. We may decide that after losing our initial goal of 5 kilos, we now want to lose an additional 10. So instead of going into maintenance mode, we start to re-evaluate our diet and health plan, we do more exercise, we re-assess our goals against our current outcomes and we make minor adjustments to the plan and the timeline.
 
So when you are planning your goals and your timelines, make sure that you allow time for re-assessment and re-alignment. Make sure your bricks are in the right place, or you may end up like that tower in Italy.