The Subtle Art Of Doing Little Things In Life

I want to take you through two basic instances from my life and explain  it with the theory of selective attention but from a different  perspective.

Instance 1 -  When I was in 6th grade and preparing for the final exams, my goal was to learn all the pages and solve every exercise of a particular book of a subject. On the last page of the book, I always used to rejoice about completing the whole book and would feel ready for the exam. At that time, the primary target which I used to set was to complete the  book and believe me its a great feeling once you do it.

Ask  yourself - On the second last page of a book, is your mind more focused  on completing the book or completing the last chapter?

Instance 2 - One day, when I was watching TV in my apartment on the 10th floor at 10 in the night, the conversation of the people in a TV program was suddenly replaced by the loud noise of fire alarm. This was never expected and I panicked. My first target was to reach the ground floor of the building safely and that had to be done without an escalator. At that time, for a  moment I became conscious that I was on the 10th floor and I will have to get down by the stairs. There was no other way. Evidently, it was a  false alarm and no one was hurt.

Ask yourself - Would I have gone through the same level of panic if I was on the second floor of that building?

There was one thing common in the two instances. I was eager to reach the end of that book and get down to the ground floor as soon as possible. Could I have dealt with these two instances in a different way? The answer is yes. The goals should have been smaller in both the instances. The idea should have been to create imaginary small goals and shift focus from  something humongous to small milestones which are comparatively easier to achieve. This approach helps us to prioritize important items and  reduces multitasking. It also helps us approach our goals in a planned  way with lesser chances of failure.

We are hardwired and eager to get to the end or the conclusion and enjoy the feeling of  accomplishment whether it’s reading a book, watching a television series  or making love to your partner without realizing the fact that the  moment for which we have been so eagerly waiting actually lasts for some  time until it starts to fade away.

And  when we reach the end, we forget the path we took. Human brains are  just built this way where the conclusion matters. For many of us, the  conclusion is success, prosperity, and happiness. So even if we have a  certain amount of success, prosperity or happiness, we start looking for  more and build a new end. And this process continues.

Success is the sum of Small Efforts, Repeated Day In and Day Out

But  why do we set ourselves large goals? I guess that’s because larger  goals tend to give us more sense of achievement. So how do we have a  larger sense of achievement in smaller goals? Whenever we achieve a  small goal, we have to reward ourselves. Its like feeding treats to a  dog who is learning habits or some tricks.

Dog owners would know this technique. Photo by Marek Szturc.

Can  we implement the above logic in life and make it a habit so that it  does not feel like the execution of a project or a plan. I guess so. I  will try to explain it in my context. There are three primary goals in  my life. First, to maintain Health, Second, to excel in my career and  third to build long-lasting relationships with people.

Having a Successful Career

For most of us, this is the way our career is defined

1. Get an Education.
2. Learn some practical skills.
3. Get a job.
4. While in the job, try to move up the ladder.
5. Get distracted by someone else’s job because they are earning more than you.
6. Learn those skills.
7. Switch jobs.
8. That’s it . Retire with some money in hand.

Few months back, I was trying to switch my career along with the sector of my work because I didn’t want to get old while trying to perform the above list. I was eager to switch career and always made unrealistic plans.

The problem with career is that it is associated with money and money makes us alter our plans and priorities.

This forced me to dwell into the problem I was facing and how should I go  about it slowly and focus on one small thing at once and stop  multi-tasking. I made a plan and some short-term compromises. I had to  make myself believe that this will be long process and a carefully  planned transition will be required.

Maintaining Health and Wellness

For some years, I concentrated on my career more often than anything else  in the world. And when I say 'career', it’s mostly a job which I was doing keeping my actual interests hidden somewhere in the closet.

Because I was ignoring my health for my career which most people have to do, one day I decided to keep the career aside for sometime and concentrate on health more often. After all this permutation and combination, I realized that something will always be missing and I will never reach the state of equilibrium.

When I started thinking about health, I made a routine and started to follow it. I realized that the plan I made was not syncing with my free time. So, I started shredding down the plan. Soon, I was just focusing on  eating on time and doing yoga out of the 10 items which I had planned earlier. I thought where will I lead myself by doing just two items. I was aiming for something high and it really didn’t make any sense. But later, I realized these two activities had already started making a difference to my health in a good way. Few days after, I started eating  healthy as well along with the other two planned activities.

To  maximize my benefits, I broke down each major milestone into several  milestones and categorized them as easy and hard. I realized that easy  ones could be done even when your focus is somewhere else.

The  only thing I had to do was to make it a habit. I started smiling more (not for unnecessary reasons ) while talking to people. It not only made  people like me but smiling has health benefits also which most people  have forgotten. And it’s free.

What about Relationships?

Well,  Relationships are complicated. It can be with your parents, friends,  family, colleagues or partners. Relationship with your family is more  natural as compared to a relationship that you intend to form with a  stranger. But some Relationship Goals are common like -

1. Being nice.
2. Communicate and Maintain contact over a period of time.
3. Support each other.

Sometimes we complicate relationships and forget what we really expected from the  person in the first place. While this may not be the case every time,  studies have shown that complexity of emotions affect human relationships in a way more than one may have expected.

The complexity of emotion in any relationship is driven by two factors- What I think and what others may think.

The ‘may’ is the biggest factor of not being successful in a relationship and its  only way is to have a healthy and clear communication. So instead of  having huge relationship goals, I started emphasizing on communication  as one of the most basic things which most people tend to ignore. Communication always has been a two way street and believe me, this does  not make it any easier because what we think and what we express may not be in sync with each other either intentionally or unintentionally.

Don’t  Forget, for all the goals that you achieve, It is important to reward  yourself and feel glad about it to be able to make it a habit.

I did a little thing today by pointing out that habit of doing little things is a neglected part of our life and we need to take notice of that.  Leave your comments in the comment section and let me know if my approach made any change in your life.