make small but powerful changes

That's the key to making big changes; start small. Make one small change and everything changes because the situation starts to look a little different. Make one small powerful change and everything really changes because you change your pattern, you make a fresh start.

This came to me this morning when I was thinking about someone who used to say "yes" to more or less anything requested of her at work. Many of these requests were interesting and she enjoyed the new challenges but gradually it seemed if there was extra work to be done, she was asked before anyone else and everyone assumed she would do it without a second thought.

She said "yes" over and over again. And she told her me as her coach that she was tired of doing that so tried saying "Yes but I may not be able to help to so I might have to decline, give me twenty four hours to think about it". A small change which did help because she did begin to go back and say "no" sometimes. However everyone still assumed she would say "yes" so she had to fight to change their minds if that wasn't what she wanted and that was no fun.

So with coaching support she decided to say "No, but let me think about it" And that was a small but very powerful change as she gave herself time to decide which tasks to accept and which to decline. She often did go back and agree later but people stopped asking her ALL the time and that felt better too.

Make a small change and see what happens !