The power of proactivity: small, conscious steps to create big changes
We create change every time we do something we want, whether that is catching up with a friend, pursuing an exercise routine or choosing how we spend an evening. Every time we are making a decision we are creating change. Often these decisions will be the product of our response to change; if we have a long and tiring day we may respond by choosing to have a relaxing evening or an early night.
However, how often do we consciously seek to create change, whether that is in our lives or the world around us and at what scale?
Naturally life will be a balance of being reactive and proactive, yet in both cases the question still stands: how consciously - or with how much awareness - do we do both?
As explored before in the context of finding purpose, Viktor Frankl, the psychiatrist, argues that our greatest freedom is the choice of how we approach every moment of life, even unavoidable suffering.
So if at every moment we have a choice of how to approach life, then that also means we have the power to consciously, proactively approach any situation and in doing so create change.
Being intentional and conscious of everything we do at every moment may sound exhausting, potentially impossible. In fact we have probably already chosen to not be conscious of everything we do, such as how to move my leg as I walk or how my fingers press the keys as I type, probably because the walking or the typing is part of a process to achieve something that is more important. However, this is where we can start to question how conscious a decision is. Why have I chosen to walk? Why am I typing? The answers to these questions may then suggest our motivations or at least our reasons and hint at how conscious some of our decisions are.
I could be walking to go to the shops, I could be walking because I’ve agreed to meet a friend. I could be walking because I have decided I want to go for a walk as part of an intention to get more fresh air and to be more active. In each scenario I may therefore approach my walk differently. On my way to the shops my focus is the shop so I may be listening to a podcast or music or taking the chance to make a call. Likewise with traveling to see a friend. In the final example, I may simply be walking because that is what I have chosen to do.
But, why does being conscious of what we do and how we approach things matter? Particularly for such trivial, everyday examples.
Small actions and decisions can make an incremental and significant difference in our life, if we’re not consciously thinking about those actions and behaviours we’re missing out on innumerable opportunities to live life how we want or take steps to create a life we want.
Consider the following questions
What got you here right now, reading this blog?
How much of those steps did you take consciously?
What do you notice? What might you have done differently?
What could the impact be of being more conscious about what we do?
There are two possible impacts of being more conscious of what we do and how we approach things.
Firstly, we can experience more fully whatever it is we are doing. The times we have travelled a well-known route and can’t remember how we got from A to B comes to mind, or the meal we devour before really acknowledging what the food was like, or the conversations with friends where we’re considering the things we need to do next: What’s for dinner? How are we going to respond to that email? When will I be home?
Secondly, we can proactively take steps to achieve what we really want.
Through conscious actions we can create habits or routines that incrementally move us to where we want to be. This process has been termed the ‘Mundanity of excellence’ by Daniel Chambliss. In his research into swimmers of all levels, from Olympic athletes to local swimming teams, he found that this mundanity of excellence - excellence being consistent superiority of performance - extended beyond swimming and was the product not of talent but qualitative actions. Although he recognised that we could benefit from attributes that predispose us to a certain endeavour, for example natural flexibility would always be a benefit to a swimmer, Chambliss saw talent as a lazy explanation for excellence and instead emphasised that
‘Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence’.
It is also worth noting that Chambliss found qualitative actions more important than quantitative differences. The time a swimmer trained had less bearing on their level than what they did and how they did it. For example he cited the 1984 double gold medal Olympic diver, Greg Louganis, who trained for only three hours a day, a relatively small amount of time if we consider how many hours we spend at work each day. What mattered was Louganis’ approach to his training.
Another eye-opening example Chambliss uses is Mary Meagher, who, aged 13 and having qualified for the National Championships, decided to break the 200m butterfly world record. The two things she noted as crucial in her going on to break that record in 1979 at the age of 14 were ensuring she was on-time to every practice and that her turns between laps were technically and legally correct in every training session. What is striking is that neither of these actions are ground breaking or novel, Meagher didn’t uncover a new approach that was what made her a world-record holder, instead it was two conscious decisions to do things differently.
Here is where the mundanity of excellence and the idea of conscious, proactive decision making can be so powerful. What do we want and what qualitative but otherwise small steps can we take to move towards what we want?
Being consistent to create change
If excellence is mundane, for Chambliss so is motivation. He recognised that amidst all the long-term goals swimmers at every level had their progress towards them depended not simply on small conscious actions but short-term benefits that these small tasks contribute towards. For example, the enjoyment of practising with other swimmers, or for Steve Lundquist, another Olympic gold medallist, his approach was to win every single race every day no matter the context. Going beyond swimming, what we can take from this is the importance in pursuing something that is important to us and working out how we can work towards it in small ways day-to-day as well as in the long-term. The mundanity of excellence is in part driven by the meaning and importance that being excellent in a chosen thing has for each of us.
As well as qualitative differences, attitude was a crucial part of what differentiated swimmers of different levels, elite-level swimmers enjoyed the early swimming training, what we may see as sacrifice they didn’t because they simply wanted to do it. In the same way, where we want to be with something and therefore how we then approach it will vary. For example, I enjoy making bread but the thought of waking up in the early hours to bake a hundred loaves as a baker is less appealing, consequently I will work towards making bread regularly but not towards being a baker.
So, through small consistent actions and qualitative changes we can move towards what we want. The level at which we want something and at which we achieve it, will affect the approach to the actions we take. Motivation comes with action and underlying these actions is often a vision of what we want, however what can kickstart all of this is a consciousness or awareness of what we want, what we are doing and how we are doing it to move towards what we want. So how do we get this process going?
Consciously creating change through small actions
Start with a vision
There is a proverb: vision without action is a dream, action without vision is a nightmare.Therefore a good starting point is a longer-term vision that will act as our destination and provide direction to our action. The questions to consider include what would I like my life to look like? What am I doing? Who am I sharing my time with? What does it feel like?
Given the importance of consistency in creating change, it is important to consider feeling, Chambliss’ point about sacrifice and enjoyment is important here, we need to consider that what we are pursuing is something that excites us and will excite us. Test this by considering what it would feel like to act towards fulfilling this vision every single day. Would it get you out of bed?
Work out what fulfils that vision now
What does living that vision right now look like? What is the first step you can do or the qualitative change you can make to move towards fulfilling that vision? What could you do each day that will not only move you towards that vision but in doing it will in a small way fulfil that vision? Think back to Steve Lundquist’s mission to win every race every day, when it then came to Olympic finals he was just doing what he had always done. Say I wanted to be a better leader at work, what can I do each day that is me trying to do that? Perhaps it is consciously taking time to check in on my team each day. Say I want to write a book or to connect more with friends, I could carve out fifteen minutes at the same time each day to write or fifteen minutes to message or call a friend each day.
Act, consistently
Action leads to motivation and by breaking down a long-term vision into something that is only a conscious and possibly small but regular action we are creating momentum by building habits through different, conscious behaviours.
Reflect, celebrate, and iterate
What gets us to where we are now wont always get us to where we want to be. Think back to the qualitative changes that Meagher made to break the world record. It is important to check-in on where we are, where we are going and how we are getting there. What is working? What do we want to do differently? Is the process bringing us joy or fulfilment? We may even notice we are where we want to be or at least further along than we may have thought. Consider what you will do to celebrate the commitment to you, how does it feel? What do you notice? What would you differently?
Pausing offers us the opportunity to consciously check-in and then to change or continue as we are in the pursuit of what we want.
The only consistency is change
Change is constant however our own efforts to create change for us can often be inconsistent or unconscious. The process of more consciously creating the change we want doesn’t have to be an overwhelming overhaul of how we live our lives but merely conscious, small steps, actions or changes that can create incremental and meaningful change for us.
As Chambliss concluded:
‘The action, in itself, is nothing special; the care and consistency with which it is made is.’
What would be the small actions we can consistently take to create what we want in the future now as much as then?
And even if we don’t get to where we want to be, the act of taking these small, conscious steps alone is us already living the life we want more now than we were when we were doing nothing.
References
Daniel Chambliss, ‘The Mundanity of Excellence An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers’ (1989)
