One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

What more important task does this life hold than to
draw out the possibility in each moment?

If you take an extra moment to show excitement about a young person’s artistic or intellectual efforts, you may help that child discover the joy of learning. If you spend a minute or two each day writing a kind note to tuck into a loved one’s briefcase or a child’s lunchbox, you may save yourself the heartache that comes when relationships grow cool from a lack of nurturance and daily care. If you wish to maintain standards of physical health that are already high, have fun with the small opportunities to take one more set of stairs or eliminate a few more junk calories.

If you really want to play, consider how the world might be different if more of us conducted our social, business, and romantic lives with the belief that small steps matter, that even the shortest contact with another person is inherently important. Kaizen offers the possibility that through small acts of kindness, and even small moments of compassion and curiosity, we can change ourselves—and, eventually, humanity. We can focus on being generous in daily thoughts and actions, so that we don’t hoard our kindness for some important person or event, but spend it freely when our children anger us or when an employee deserves a small compliment. We can respect ourselves by taking small steps toward improving our health and relationships; we can respect others by asking them small questions. This is not easy to do, and only you can determine the place of kaizen in your world. But as you incorporate kaizen into your routines and discover its power, you will have begun to answer a profound question:

What more important task does this life hold than to draw out the possibility in each moment?

remember to hold on to its essence: an optimistic belief in our potential for continuous improvement

If your desire is to unleash your creative potential, try asking a new question of yourself each day. Await the answers with both anticipation and trust.

Instead of aggressively forcing yourself into a boot-camp mentality about change, give your mind permission to make the leaps on its own schedule, in its own time.

One mistake many people make during this process is to praise their partners only for their actions. “You’re such a good cook,” we say, or “you did a great job trimming the hedges.” But if your partner receives compliments only for the services he provides, he may begin to feel like an employee. Instead, try to identify one moment each day during which you can praise your partner’s personality or appearance. Try “I love the way your hair looks in the morning,” or “I love how excited you get on the way to the movies.” Acknowledging these small moments reassures your partner that she is loved as a person, not just as a homemaker or breadwinner

Focusing on small moments is both easy and hard to do. I am reminded how easy it is when I watch children play and learn. They are absolutely focused in the moment, so able to take pleasure and be absorbed in their activities and their friends. As their brains develop, two other capacities come on board. One is the ability to recall the past, and the other is the ability to anticipate the future. These were crucial additions to our survival tool kit as a species. The ability to remember in which direction our enemies were seen and anticipate what problems could be encountered with them was crucial. But these two new skills usually mean we all spend a bit too much time dwelling in the past and worrying about the future. Through kaizen, we can regain more of that precious quality of childhood: the ability to take pleasure in the moment, to become fascinated with those around us and whatever we are doing.

“To be really great in little things, to be truly noble and heroic in the insipid details of everyday life, is a virtue so rare as to be worthy of canonization.”

—Harriet Beecher Stowe

—Harriet Beecher Stowe

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”

—Desmond Tutu

One of the study’s major findings was that in the successful relationships, positive attention outweighed negative on a daily basis by a factor of five to one. This positive attention wasn’t about dramatic actions like throwing over-the-top birthday parties or purchasing a dream home. It took the form of small gestures, such as:

using a pleased tone of voice when receiving a phone call from the partner, as opposed to an exasperated tone or a rushed pace that implied the partner’s call was interrupting important tasks
inquiring about dentist appointments or other details of the other person’s day
putting down the remote control, newspaper, or telephone when the other partner walked through the door
arriving home at the promised time—or at least calling if there was a delay
These small moments turned out to be more predictive of a loving, trusting relationship than were the more innovative steps of romantic vacations and expensive presents. Possibly, that’s because small moments provide consistent tending and nurturing.