By now you know I’m a fan of starting small – it’s an ideal way to just.get.started.

It’s really easy to see in terms of moving your body… go walk for five minutes.

Yes, just five.

Start there.

It’s so dang simple it’s almost silly NOT to do it.

You might think it doesn’t count, or that it won’t matter, but it all adds up! And I don’t mean it adds up to 35 minutes in a week (if you do it all seven days), I mean it adds up because you add to it over time.

You won’t always walk five minutes, you’ll up it to six, and then seven and then ten and eventually you’ll be moving your body for 30 minutes everyday as a non-negotiable.

And that, my friend, absolutely adds up!

But it all starts with just five minutes – a seemingly silly amount of time. How silly does it seem, though, when I ask you this: if you can’t commit to five minutes, what makes you think you could commit to an hour at the gym each day?

Does it still sound silly?

Starting Small Works in Other Areas

Maybe you want to be more flexible for a better quality of life but can’t seem to find the dedicated time to stretch for 10-20 minutes per day to really make a difference.

Break it down and start smaller. Start stretching your hamstrings while you brush your teeth.

It’s a win-win because not only are you working on increasing your flexibility, but you don’t need to carve out any additional time – you already brush your teeth, now you can use it double-time to reach one of your goals.

Another example is maybe you’re trying to eat more fruits and vegetables. If you’re like me, the first thing you do is go to the grocery store and buy at least one pound of every type of fruit and vegetable there is.

Only to see it going bad a few days later before you get a chance to eat it all.

That all-or-nothing approach isn’t doing you any favors… you saw the rotting food and thought of the wasted money and immediately defaulted to thinking eating more fruits and veggies isn’t going to work anyways.

Go smaller.

However many servings of fruits or veggies you’re currently having – up it by one.

Just one.

Don’t go load up at the grocery, just grab one apple or one orange or one bag of baby carrots. Start there and eat those so there’s no wasting half your grocery haul. Once you’re in the habit of eating that amount, up it by one more.

And so on. Eventually you get to your goal number of servings, but it happens so gradually you don’t even notice (and your budget doesn’t explode with the cost of wasted food).

Yet another example for you is taking supplements.

If you go to the Google and start researching what supplements to take, you get a litany of answers and by the time you’re done, you’ve got $438 worth of supplements in your cart.

But how will you know what works if you use a shotgun approach? Some will most definitely be making expensive urine, but some could be game changers. So now you’re stuck taking them all because you don’t want to stop taking the ones that DO work.

Instead, start smaller. Start with one supplement you think may help whatever issue you’re trying to improve. Try it for a few weeks, or even months to see if you notice a difference (after consulting a physician of course). 

If it works, great! Issue improves and you can go on about your day, or think about addressing an additional issue/concern.

If it doesn’t work, stop taking it and try something else!

We Want Results Yesterday

As humans we have a difficult time taking our time when it comes to our health … or anything really. We want results yesterday – which is funny because we’re wired NOT to want change. 

But we’re impatient, and that impatience causes us to have really expensive urine and waste a whole lot of food.

If we start smaller though, we can find what ACTUALLY works.