One Small Thing

Intro Music:

Welcome to An Owner’s Guide for Your Life, the podcast that combines psychology, coaching, common sense and fun. I’m Tracey Browning, an entrepreneur, life coach and lover of people. Now let’s talk about how to live, love, make money and change the world.

Tracey:
Hey, I’m glad you’re here. Welcome to the first episode of 2022!
Oh, my goodness.
A fresh New Year. I like it.

I’m big on beginnings. I like starting projects. I like new years. I like new months. I like new notebooks. Opening the notebook with all the clean pages. It’s just fresh, and I like to think about the possibilities of what I can fill it with, how that project can come to life.

A new year. It’s filled with possibilities and a great way to start the year is not with the complete overhaul of you, your life, your job, your house, your family, your everything. I like to start simply- to be effective and efficient and focused.

So let’s start this way. Let’s do a simple life check in.
Go somewhere where you’ve got a little bit of peace and quiet and take five, maybe ten minutes for this. This is not something to go sit and think hours on, okay, five to ten minutes.

Grab a couple of sheets of paper and a pen. I like to do it with paper and pen because there’s something about the interaction of thinking and actually having your hand write it out instead of typing into a computer or on your phone. But if you don’t have paper and pen handy, by all means, use your computer, use your phone.

Here’s what we’ll do. On the first sheet of paper list eleven things that are most important to you in life right now, big or small, profound or not. It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks or what you think somebody might think. Nobody else needs to see this list. This is for you.

What are the eleven things that are most important to you right now in your life, right where you are now?

There’s nothing really magical about the number of eleven. I just happen to like it. Of course, if you’re into numerology, maybe there is something magical about the number eleven. Anyway, we’re just going with it. It gives you room to have some big things and maybe some not so big things.

Now you’ve got your list of eleven things, the things that are most important to you in life right now. Take out your second sheet of paper and let’s think about the ways you spent your time and your energy in the last 30 days.

What are the eleven things you’ve spent most of your time and energy on now?

I know in this case we’re stretching back over a holiday stretch. We’ve got Christmas and New Year’s in the last 30 days, so it may not be the most accurate indicator, but I don’t mind including it because life is not static and holidays and extras, other people’s priorities and demands, it’s all part of life, so it can give you an interesting picture. If you want, you can stretch back to over the last 60 or 90 days. There’s not a hard and fast rule here. Do what you want to do. Whatever makes most sense to you. Maybe it helps you to flip back to your calendar to see. Oh, here’s how I have spent most of my time. We’re not after a perfect accounting. You just want a good sense of the top ways you’re actually spending your time.

I bet you know what comes next.
Put those two lists side by side.
That’s why I like to have actual pieces of paper instead of the computer, because I can put them side by side.

How much overlap do you have between the things that are most important to you and how you’re spending your time and energy?
Is your life the way that you’re currently living it?
Is it giving you the space for what matters most to you?

Now, our goal here isn’t to beat ourselves up if it’s just not happening the way we wished it would happen. If you have that response, go ahead and feel those feelings. Don’t shut them down, but don’t linger there.

What our goal is with this exercise, we want to look for one small thing that we can do to move our actual time and energy closer to where we’d like it to be.
One small thing.
What is one small thing you can do to shift the balance of how you’re spending your time and your energy?
One small thing to bring your actual life closer to your desired life?

Decide on that one small thing and do it.
Do it consistently just for one day.
And then tomorrow decide to do that same thing consistently for that one day.
We’re going to decide to do it consistently every day for the next week.
Just taking it a day at a time.

Now, don’t worry about picking the most important thing or the effort that’s going to give you the biggest impact. I do like power law theory. I like leveraging what’s going to give me the most bang for my buck. But here, let’s just pick one small, easy thing to do. And then we’re going to make the choice to do it consistently.

We want to be like water.
Be like that drip of water, drip, drip, drip, that drips down on the rock.
That water.
It’s a drip of water, for heaven’s sakes.
It’s soft. It’s insignificant, especially compared to that solid weight of the rock.

But you know what happens over time.
That little drip, drip, drip.
It wears the rock down.

One small thing done consistently can move you closer to the life that you want.
That one small thing when we’re consistently doing it brings us a sense of relief. Oh, yes, my values are lining up with my actions.
Satisfaction, accomplishment.
One small thing.

It brings momentum and that can propel you into more of what you want.

You want more energy? Do a small thing. Dance to a song every day. It doesn’t have to be good dancing. Take it from me. I am not a great dancer, but I like to dance like no one’s watching to a song every day because I want more energy.

You want more peace? Sit quietly for three minutes.

Want to treat yourself more? Eat one piece of really good chocolate.

You want more gratitude in your life? Tell someone you appreciate something they’ve done and don’t get caught up in making a big production of it thinking you’ve got to buy the perfect little thank you gift-no, no, no. A quick note. A direct message. We’re looking for one small thing.

You want more love in your life? Give more love. It comes back to you.

You want more organization? Clean one small drawer. Something you can unclutter in five minutes or less. Just one small thing, not a complete overhaul.

One small thing that creates more space for the life that you want.

Thank you for listening. I appreciate you!

Now let’s go live, love, make some money and change the world.

For a transcript of this episode or for more information about life and mindset coaching, visit my website https://www.tbrowning.com/.