Desmond Tutu once said that “there is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time.”
I know he wasn’t the first to say it, but I like the way he said it! It communicates a truth with which I have wrestled all my life.
The way to accomplish a huge goal is through many small acts repeated and built on each other. It’s the magic of compounded interest that makes a millionaire. It’s the constant drip, drip of water that carves out caves and embellishes them with stalactites. And it’s the small daily habits that we repeat over and over that make us who we are.
In his book Atomic Habits, John Clear urges readers to stop focusing on the goal. Instead, he tells us to imagine the person we want to be—and then to create habits that help us become that person. The habits start out very small, but they build on each other gradually. His suggestion is to improve just 1% daily to see gradual progress that lasts.
To make new habits stick, they must be identity-oriented. The focus isn’t on what you want to achieve, but who you want to become. The sentence that hit home for me: “You ARE what you DO.” If you write something every day, you’re a writer. If you run every day, even if it’s only a few minutes, you are a runner. You don't have to wait until you've published that novel or won the marathon to become the person you want to be.
This was so encouraging to me, because I have always focused on goals—big goals that loomed in the distance and seemed insurmountable. Setting my sights on the person I want to be is life-changing. It means I can feel that I’ve accomplished something every day, not just sometime in the distant future. It side steps the perfectionism and resulting procrastination that hobble me whenever I try to make a change in my life.
So now I’m fired up, ready to change my life, 1% at a time!