One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

Kaizen has two definitions: using very small steps to improve a habit, a process, or product using very small moments to inspire new products and inventions

Why Kaizen Works All changes, even positive ones, are scary. Attempts to reach goals through radical or revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. But the small steps of kaizen disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought and creative play.

Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient, uses small questions when he sits down to write his novels. “I don’t have any grand themes in my head,” he says (a statement you’ll hear echoed by other great writers). Nor does he start with an impossibly large question, such as “What kind of character would be fascinating to readers?” Instead, he t

“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.” —Mark Twain

When we face personal crises, the kaizen strategy of solving small problems offers consolation and practical assistance. If we are involved in a lawsuit, or fall ill, or find that the economic tides are leaving our business high and dry, or our partner is falling out of love with us, we cannot fix our circumstances with one quick, decisive moment o

“Confront the difficult while it is still easy; accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.” —Tao Te Ching

“When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it h

when you’re landing planes atop a ship in the middle of the ocean, one error, even a tiny one, could spell disaster. Officers and crew are trained not to assume the system will run perfectly on its own. Instead, they look for the slightest signal that things are going awry. They listen for subtle signs of tension in pilots’ voices when they circle

This common but counterproductive phenomenon is captured in a familiar joke: A drunk is on his hands and knees looking for his keys under a streetlight. A policeman approaches him and asks, “What are you doing?” The drunk replies in a slurred voice, “I’m looking for my keys.” The policeman further inquires, “Where did you drop them?” The drunk says

I’ve developed a theory about why kaizen works when all else fails. I outline this theory in the first chapter. The succeeding chapters are devoted to the personal application of kaizen and encompass six different strategies. These strategies include: asking small questions to dispel fear and inspire creativity thinking small thoughts to develop ne