Tip 681: Small Things Lead to Big Things

From the Personal Development Workshops: Small Things Lead to Big Things

It’s interesting how an idea in one tip can lead to an idea for the next tip.

Robert Frost in The Road Not Taken talks of “how way leads on to way.”

Last week, we’ll talked of how staying on a task can generate a positive attitude. We shared counsel from retired Admiral William McRaven:   

If you make your bed every morning, you’ll have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

His counsel generated more counsel. 

One Tip subscriber wrote how he had a supervisor for the Viking Mars Lander project: 

When things got out of hand, to reinforce the sense he was still in control of the project, he would go out and change the oil in his car.

He said that this was something he knew he could do, and it would help reset his orientation to the challenge facing him.

Another subscriber wrote of her experience as a young stay-at-home mother: 

Three bouncing, beautiful, enthusiastic, energetic dynamos under five years old. Laundry hampers overturned. Bookshelves emptied. Plates and glasses everywhere.

The first thing I did? I cleaned the goldfish bowl. I would start. I would finish. It looked beautiful when I was done. Goldie the Goldfish was happy. Then—and only then—I would start on the hamper. And the bookcase. And the dishes.  

We do the small things; they give us the control and confidence to do the big things.

“Way leads on to way.”

This works. We love it.