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Daily Inspiration: Feeling Stressed? Try This Trick…

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Drop by drop fills the bucket. – Confucius

From time to time, like many other women in America, I tend to feel overwhelmed by all of the things I have to do.

Thankfully, I have some amazing friends to turn to during my less-than-blissful moments.  Just last week, I turned to my friend Marie when I was feeling blue, and she gave me the best advice:

“Make small goals.  So you feel like you’ve accomplished something.”

But wait, something inside of me screamed, that goes against my entire life philosophy.  You can’t get anywhere with small goals!  You need to go big or go home!

Yet it turns out the best in personal development experts agree with Marie, not me.  Success magazine editor Darren Hardy writes in his latest book, The Compound Effect, “When people get started in a new endeavor, they almost always overdo it…You need to find a program that you can absolutely, positively do in the long term without renegotiation.  I don’t want you to think about what you can do for this week, month, or for the next ninety days, I want for you to think about what you can do for the rest of your life.”  O: The Oprah magazine columnist and life coach Martha Beck chimes in with her idea of turtle steps: “A ‘turtle step’ is my label for the largest possible task that your essential self can do easily…Even on a bad day, when you contemplate your turtle steps, your immediate, genuine gut reaction should be, ‘Oh yeah, sure, I can do that.”

So I tried this philosophy.  Instead of giving myself the schedule of an elite military sergeant, I softened my approach.  I made very easy, almost embarrassing, minimum daily goals for studying, blogging, working out – basically anything that isn’t habitual.

Within the first day, I felt lighter.  Rather than beating myself up as per usual for not studying 8 hours, I was content with 4 solid hours.  Instead of feeling guilty for eating potato chips after dinner, I was satisfied with having consumed only 1500 total daily calories.

Moreover, after a couple of days of this approach, I started to feel better about myself.  Those thoughts of “I can’t do this” or “I’m not where I need to be” vanished.  Instead, I gained some momentum.  I found myself surpassing my goals on my great days, just making the minimum on my not-so-great days.  Yet I always felt better at the end of the day, knowing I had done something. 

Where in your life can you apply the principle of turtle steps?  It’s an amazing way of looking at your to-do list as a “can-do, will-do” list.  It frees your mind, time, and energy for more important things.  Allow yourself to surpass the minimum when you feel like it, accept that success requires patience and consistency with this approach, and you’ll be well on your way to changing your life, one small step at a time!
Photo source: T is for turtle, originally uploaded by la_salebete.

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