#205. Warning: Drastic changes lead to failure
Making radical changes is usually impractical. They often don't stick, and leave the person frustrated and wondering why they failed. While radical change is impractical, change is something that has to be done for both success and survival. So, how do you make the changes that you need for success without failing miserably in the process. Drastic changes lead you to failure, but tiny changes lead to success.
Making incremental improvements isn't a burden. Incremental improvements are easy to adapt and leave a lot of room for failure.
Much of the human process is assimilation. When a change happens, we as humans, quickly try to adapt to the change and survive under the new variables. If you want to make a change, break up the change into several pieces that are smaller, and therefore more palatable. We often choose to make drastic changes so that we can accomplish the goal faster. That is a mistake.
Small changes are easy to assimilate
You cannot rush change. The smaller the change you make, the less resistance you will be to make the changes, and the more room for failure you have to mess up and still reach your goal. When the change you make is drastic you will hit a wall. Once the initial motivation and excitement wears off, you will fail to reach your goal. With small changes, you won't hit a wall, because you don't need much motivation to keep the change as a part of your lifestyle.
Small changes don't force you to use all of your willpower. Willpower isn't unlimited. You can only rely on willpower so much, until you are conquered by your temptation, and return to your default. Whenever you don't have enough willpower to make changes in your life, you will return to your already established lifestyle. Because small changes don't suck up all of your willpower, they become parts of our lifestyle, without much resistance.
You cannot break your bad habits or form new, good habits by making drastic changes. Drastic changes lead you to fall flat on your face wondering what you can do to reach your goal. Small changes allow you to assimilate without much resistance and repeat. So, if you're goal was to lose 25 pounds, you could lose 5, get used to the lifestyle that allowed you to lose 5 pounds, and lose another 5 until you reach your goal.
Slow and steady
Slow and steady wins the race. When you're traveling slow and steady, you can focus on each step instead of trying to prepare for a scary, impossible, giant leap. How do you eat an elephant? One bit at a time. if you try to eat an elephant in one sitting, you will not finish it. An elephant's body is inexplicably larger than your stomach. You can only eat an elephant if you eat it in portions that are small enough to handle. If you eat the elephant in small portions, it may take years to conquer, but you won't fail.
