27. Habit Building
The art of building new habits is one of my favorite things to teach and talk about. And this week, I’m sharing a tool that has served me in my business and really my whole life since the very beginning (even when I didn’t know I was using this tool). I call it: Too Small to Fail. If you have any area where you’ve been wanting to create a new habit or any to-do item that you’ve been avoiding or feeling intimidated by, this tool can help you with that.
If you listened to last week’s episode, you’ll know I firmly believe that failure can be an important part of our development. However, not all failure is created equal. Failure that happens because we’re trying something new and don’t know how to do it perfectly isn’t the same as the failure that happens because we expect ourselves to be able to do more than we can and then are disappointed that we have to do actual learning to get to where we want to go.
And when it comes to building habits, I see so many people setting themselves up for that second kind of failure. Instead of inching their way into a new habit, which is what Too Small to Fail is all about, they’ll try to launch right into doing the full-fledged final version and then they’ll give up because that level is actually too hard to start from.
But of course - it doesn’t have to be this way. You can build new habits in a fun, sustainable way, and this week, I’m sharing how to successfully build a habit piece by piece.
Join me on the podcast this week to discover the habit-building tool that tons of my clients have used to great success across a variety of areas (not just work stuff!). I’ll share how I’ve used this tool and how it’s made real, lasting change to my procrastination and perfectionism, and how you can do exactly the same!
If you love the podcast and want to take this work deeper, I have great news! I have space for new one-to-one coaching clients starting this month, so click here to schedule a call with me and we’ll see if we’re a good fit to start working together!
If there are topics y’all want me to teach and talk about on the podcast, feel free to write in and let me know by clicking here! I’d love to hear from you!
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN FROM THIS EPISODE:
Why Too Small to Fail is the perfect antidote to perfectionism, procrastination, and analysis paralysis.
How to identify the smallest tasks you can complete that will actually move you forward.
Where I see people going wrong while trying to break down their tasks into manageable chunks.
How a new habit can be developed by dedicating yourself to just five minutes of action at a time.
How to apply Too Small to Fail successfully to short-term projects and build habits that last a lifetime.
LISTEN TO THE FULL EPISODE:
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If you’re enjoying the show, please leave me a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!
Feel free to ask me any questions over on Instagram!
FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
This week we’re talking about how to build new habits.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, this week we are talking about how to build new habits, which is one of my favorite things to teach and talk about. I feel like I say that every time, I just really like to teach and talk about all the things I teach and talk about all the time on here. Which is why I'm teaching them and talking about them.
But this is one of the tools that I've actually been using the longest in my coaching business. But before we get into it, I just want to share something that I think is kind of related to what we talked about last week, which is I haven't been feeling very well. Which not my favorite thing, right? I love to feel super well in my body. And yet I have a body that doesn't always feel that way, don't we all.
And last week we talked about failure. And I think that's related because when we don't feel well, sometimes we stop doing some of the stuff that we do when we're feeling better.
So, I know I talked last week about my little, tiny running practice. And I did that for exactly three runs and then I started feeling not very well. And so on the day that would have been my fourth tiny run, I decided not to run. And by I decided not to run, I mean I pretty much stayed my ass in bed. So it's not like I got up and did all my other stuff and worked and didn't run. I didn't do anything.
And, I know, which we talked about last week, that's exactly the kind of thing where many of us then will fall out of our habit. We're like, “Well, I missed one, so basically everything's ruined. And I guess I'm just not a person who runs.” And it's interesting because even with years of being a coach this is an area where I still need to and do coach myself that like nothing's gone wrong. I'm not a failure, I haven't failed at my running practice.
It's part of the flexibility of having a long-term practice, a long-term habit is to be able to make space for when things don't go according to plan and don't go according to the habit. And knowing that I can just get right back to it when I feel up to that. And that's an amazing thing because like I'm always saying all the time, life is always going to be full of these ups and downs. And if we have to do things perfectly, we're fucked because we're not going to be able to do things perfectly.
All right, that leads into the tool we're going to talk about today, it's my habit building tool, I call it Too Small To Fail. So you know from last week that I actually think failure is great and something that is required for growth. And if we want to create big things in our lives, get new jobs, start businesses get promotions, learn new skills, all of that, we're going to need to be willing to fail along the way.
But when it comes to habit building, I have this tool, Too Small To Fail. And it's not that failure is a problem, but the whole point of the tool and the naming convention of the tool is that a lot of times when we're trying to build a habit, we try to build it in these big chunks. And the chunks are so big that they're actually really easy to fail at.
And when instead we use little, teeny, tiny chunks it's actually much easier to do the habit than to fail at it because the chunk is so very tiny and doable. It actually in many instances requires less effort to do the thing than it would to even talk ourselves out of it.
And this is such a great antidote to procrastination, analysis paralysis, and perfectionism. Because procrastination is when something seems like it's too big and going to be too much of a pain in the ass, we don't want to do it, so we don't. Analysis paralysis is like we're like thinking too hard about what we should be doing first and like what it entails and like what is the way to go about it. And then we don't do anything because we get paralysis. And then perfectionism is of course wanting to do it all perfectly, and then we don't start because we know we can't do it all perfectly as I'm always saying.
Now, I know from experience that a lot of y'all will not like this when you first hear about it because there's something very sexy and exciting about imagining ourselves like just suddenly having this amazing new running habit. Or just suddenly understanding this software completely in every way. Or just suddenly writing the whole report and it's all perfect and we don't even need to edit it.
But that is not how things in real life happen most of the time. In fact, almost never is that how it happens. And instead, we're usually just being like very stressed out and like biting all of our fingernails off and like drinking six coffees and having a glass of wine and feeling terrible about ourselves because we didn't start on the thing. And we know that we're just going to have to do the whole thing later, probably in a rush.
So you can use this tool for literally any single thing you want to accomplish. Especially anything you feel intimidated about, anything you've been wanting to do for a while, but you've been putting off. Big projects, like I mentioned earlier new software you have to learn. That’s something I had a client specifically work on this with.
But the example that we're going to use today is let's just say your boss has asked you to create a huge PowerPoint presentation for the CEO. And your brain is totally losing its mind. The PowerPoint presentation needs to have this beautiful grand overarching vision.
And it needs to really sell the CEO on why she should choose to do what you are planning to do. You're going to ask for resources and you're going to ask for maybe even like let's say, changes to structures and processes, changes to the way things are happening at work now. And it's really important that this PowerPoint deck be amazing.
And if you're like most of us, your brain is like, “Ah, I don't even know how to get started. What if she hates it? What if she hates it? I already hate it. I didn't even make it yet.” Right? And like cue the desire to just like bury your head in a blanket and watch Netflix.
How are you going to watch Netflix if your head is in the blanket? That's not an important question. But I know that that's how all of us are. We're like, “I just need a cuddle puddle. I need to comfort myself.” Because we're so scared about this huge thing, this big intimidating task.
So instead, what are we going to do? We're going to use the tool Too Small To Fail. Now, when you think about this tool, you're going to like have your big, huge project in mind. Again, we have our PowerPoint for the CEO, and your brain is going to look at that and go, “Wait, how do I apply Too Small To Fail to this? Like this is huge, like no part of it is small, it all has to be perfect.” And your brain is going to like want to get kind of whipped up into a tizzy about it. That's okay.
Here's what we're going to do though, what you're going to do is you're going to ask yourself, “What is one tiny thing I can do to get started on this?” And like the tiniest thing you can think of divide it in half, divide it in half again.
So most people when they come to me, they'll be like, “Well, the tiniest thing I can do is write an outline of the entire presentation and everything it needs to accomplish.” That is not the tiniest thing you can do. That's not even remotely the tiniest thing you can do. That's a huge thing, your brain still thinks that's too big. It doesn't want to do it, it's still stressed out.
So instead, it's like what if you started by setting aside like, literally five minutes in your workday today. Five minutes people, everyone has five minutes. I don't care how busy you are, you can find five minutes to set aside to this. And just ask yourself, what are five things I need to make sure I include in the presentation? Not the five most important things, just five things I need to make sure I include. That's too small to fail. You just ask yourself something like that. And then we'll set another five minutes, right?
So this is actually how it is about building habits. It can be for breaking down projects, but I like to think of it as a habit builder because we're not just going to do it once, right?
So it's like we could start with we're going to do five minutes today, and five minutes tomorrow, and five minutes the next day. And do these like little, teeny chunks. So when we're trying to build longer term sustainable habits that are going to be regular habits, we want to start with these really small-time blocks.
Like with the running practice I started with three days a week, and I literally run for like two blocks y'all. By the time I'm stopping I'm maybe not even sweating. In fact, I'm probably not. That's how ridiculously small I'm talking about.
So again, if you're trying to build something sustainable that's going to be a habit in your career, you want to start with these super small chunks of time like maybe once a week, three times a week, maybe every day, I don't want to see you doing anything more than every day.
Now, if this is a project-based item that's not a longer-term sustainable habit then we can approach it a little bit differently. And then we're also going to think about when's the deadline that the thing needs to be done by?
There's no deadline that my running practice needs to be done by, that's just a habit I'm trying to build into my life. I'm going to build that extra slow and really extra sustainably because I know that when I push that too hard, then for me personally I'm like, “No, I don't feel like it.” And then I'll just stop. So that's one where I have to take it incredibly slowly in order to make it sustainable.
In the work life sometimes it's a little bit different. If you need to be up to speed on a certain software in, let's just say two months’ time, then you're going to plan back from that. And you're going to do too small to fail with the given timeline you have. But you want to start at least at the very beginning with something that feels too small to even give up on.
Like you want it to be so easy it's just a very easy win. When you think about it you like don't feel stressed in your body, you feel relief. Like five minutes, anyone can do that. Five bullet points, anyone can do that. And then we build up from there.
So, you know, let's say, I know I'm switching examples. Let's switch from the presentation for the CEO to the software example. If you need to know the software in and out in two months, we're going to start with these super small increments of time and you're going to get those quick wins. You're going to be like, “Oh yeah, I said, I was going to do it today for five minutes, I did it, 97,000 points. I'm awesome.” And then you're going to do that while it feels easy. And then we're going to start ramping up.
So the idea is not that we always only do five minutes forever. The thing is going from zero to doing five minutes is actually a huge step, because it's going from nothing to something. Once you already have the habit of doing something, any level of something, even teeny tiny something, it's much easier to build that up into longer chunks of time.
And a few things happen, for one, you get resilience against the discomfort you feel about the activity. But for two, you get a lot more comfort with the activity. There's a part of the human brain that just likes familiar stuff. Literally, even if the familiar stuff isn't stuff we like, our brain likes it because it's familiar. Last time we did it we like literally didn't die and our brain is like, “Okay, cool, this seems fine.”
So when you start with Too Small To Fail, you're able to go in and build that familiarity in those like little, teeny increments, in the little five-minute increments. And then once you have that familiarity you can ramp it up and spend more time learning or doing each time and it'll build on itself. But when we start building the habit very slowly, that's how we get that like beautiful, long term, sustainable habit.
And y'all, you know I teach and talk about work but as I always say, you can use this tool on anything. You can, like me, use it on a movement practice. You can use it on a software at work. You can use it to get your presentation done. You can use it to change all of your work habits. Anything you do at work that's habitual, you can use this to change all of it.
Now listen to me, do not use it to change all of it at once. That is not too small to fail, that is huge. We only want to change a few, like maybe one habit at a time. I know we're all overachievers here, I get it. You know I'm a recovering overachiever also. But that shit won't work and that's just a recipe for failure, not the kind we want to go for. That's a recipe for we're going to fail because we tried to do too many things and we didn't actually give ourselves a chance to succeed. That is not the kind of failure we want.
I mean, we're all going to get some of that sometimes because of who we are as people and we all are like always trying to try all the things and do all the things. So it's not that like that's bad, but that's not what we want to do on purpose, that's not the growth edge we want to be pushing. Does that make sense? If that doesn't make sense write in and write me questions because that's so important. I do not want that to go misunderstood.
Okay, let's go back to our other example now. So we understand about how we're going to build this slower sustainable habit, we understand how we can build a habit with a deadline. Then there's also a project. A project is kind of like a habit with a deadline, except for the habit might go away after the deadline.
If we're building a new skill, like a software by a deadline we're probably going to keep using that software skill after the deadline of when we need to learn it by. If we're making this big presentation for the CEO we are thinking about how do we create increments of work that are too small to fail and still get the project done by when the CEO needs to get it.
Here's the thing though, even if you're not always going to be building decks for the CEO, whatever you practice and learn while you build this deck can be an overall habit that you can create for your work life that can be useful.
So whatever habit you're creating with Too Small To Fail here on whatever timeline you have until you need to present that to the CEO, even if that particular task will go away once it's completed you can think about like, “This is how I do work. This is how I do work in my job, regardless of if the assignment is build this deck for the CEO, or if the assignment is like go collaborate with this other team to come up with compelling solutions for XYZ problem that we're having in the marketing funnel.”
It really doesn't matter because the way we do one thing is the way we do everything. If you know how to set up a habit at work, or in your life in any area, that's going to work for you in every area.
Okay, but I know that what all of you are wondering is, but what if I don't have enough time to do Too Small To Fail? I don't have enough time to do just five minutes today, five minutes tomorrow, and five minutes next week because I have to turn this thing around and 24 hours and I'm about to lose my mind with stress.
The good news is I have an answer for you. And it's still Too Small To Fail. It's a little bit different when you compress it like this, here's how I would think about it. With some stuff like building a long-term sustainable running habit you really need to do too small to fail in the way I've explained it because you're building up the habit, you're building up the muscle mass, you're building up the capacity, you're building up your airways, all of it, right?
But for sometimes, like when we're doing a work project and we just need to get something completed you can use Too Small To Fail as just an entry point. So a lot of times what will happen is when we get that big thing and it has the tight turnaround, we'll kind of, I don't know if you do this, I'm guessing you do. But I used to just kind of spaz about it. Right? Just be like, “Ah, how do I even? What do I do?”
It's kind of like the example with the big PowerPoint. Let's just pretend that needs to be ready in 24 hours. Then we're still going to go back to what I mentioned earlier, which is what's the access point? What’s the too small to fail access point, even if we're not going to stop after five minutes?
So the too small to fail access point there might be okay, what are five bullet points that need to be included? Okay, what are five more bullet points that need to be included? Okay, what are five more bullet points that need to be included? Okay, is this all the information that needs to be included? No. What else? Yes. Okay, let's put the bullet points in order. Right?
Whenever we have a limited amount of time to do something, which by the way is, you know, always then we just have to figure out what's the good enough version of this that we can do in the time we have. And when we get too obsessed with making things perfect then we don't make it the good enough version. Because we usually hyper focus on one little area, and then everything else is kind of like [inaudible], right? So instead, we want to think about getting each part to the good enough place so the whole thing can be good enough.
Also, I think that you will find that when you just get started on stuff, a lot of it does come more easily. A lot of times, what I see is that the part that is the most painful for most people is the part when they're feeling stressed before they get started. If they just get started, then they have a lot of ideas and they know how to get things done. And they usually know who to ask for the parts that they don't know how to get done.
Now there is one other key ingredient here, and that's how you talk to yourself inside your head. Because if you just get started and then you tell yourself your five bullet points are stupid and that the CEO will never approve them, you're not going to feel like finishing it. Again, you're going to want to get the Netflix and the blanket.
So this is key, too small to fail and speak kindly to yourself. That doesn't mean you lie to yourself and say these bullet points are amazing if you're like, these bullet points are actually only okay. It just means that you don't kind of shit all over yourself, okay? Just like don't be an asshole to yourself.
If your work needs to get better, make it as better as you can in the time that you have. Don't waste your time with empty self-criticism because that is pointless and will make you feel fucking terrible. Also, it'll make it a lot less likely that you'll finish the thing and have a good final product. Okay? Okay.
So let us review. When you want to build a long-term sustainable habit, do something on a deadline, finish a project at work, anything you want to do that you're not already doing. You can even use this to like speak up more in meetings.
The too small to fail there might be like, “Okay, in this meeting I'm going to say three words. And I'll do that in the next six meetings. And then after that I'm going to say six words.” I realize I'm getting like really granular and specific, but that is actually the way to do this. Because if you're like, “Oh, I'll just say a little bit of stuff.” Then you never know if you did anything or not. You never know if you met your goal.
So this kind of calls back to the goal episode where I also mentioned Too Small To Fail, which is we need to have clear deliverables so we can see that we've done what we said we'll do. And then we feel good about ourselves and that galvanizes us and gives us energy to keep going.
Okay, so I was reviewing and then I got distracted my own review. Here's the review. To do Too Small To Fail what you want to do is take the smallest thing you can imagine doing, cut it in half, cut it in half again, and then schedule it on your calendar.
And if it's something that's like a longer-term habit, you want to put on your calendar for little, tiny chunks of time regularly interspersed until that feels easy, and then you can double it or triple it. And you want it to always be what feels easy, and then make it a little bit bigger, and then make it a little bit bigger.
And your brain will definitely say that this isn't enough and won't make a big difference. But this is actually how sustainable habits are built. I've used it to build all kinds of sustainable habits in my own life. And I still do when I want to build new stuff, or when I need to rebuild something after like, you know, being sick for a while say.
And of course, if you have to do it on a timeline you can still use that in the slow process. And if it's a short timeline, the fast process is use Too Small To Fail as an entry point to get you going and then just keep using it over and over again, back-to-back until your thing is done.
Okay, now, here's the fun part. I want you all to think of something in your life that you want to do that you haven't been doing. And then I want you to use Too Small To Fail on that thing this week. Actually use it the way I talked about, do not do that thing where you just try to jump in and do it perfectly all day long every day on the first try. Do not do that to yourself.
Do it the way I taught you, set aside like maybe five minutes three times this week to start working on it. And then I want you to write me an email and tell me how it goes. Because I want to know what you're going to be creating in your lives with this. And if you run into trouble and need extra help, I want to know about that too. That's what this podcast is for. So let me know how it goes.
Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. I've got some client openings coming up soon. You can learn more about them and about how to work with me at korilinn.com. Thanks y'all, have a great week. Bye
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
You are listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It, the podcast for ambitious, high-achieving womxn who are ready to stop feeling stressed about work and kiss burnout goodbye forever. Whether you’re starting a business or staying in your day job, this show will give you the coaching and guidance you need to start loving your work today. Here’s your host, Career Coach, Kori Linn.
Hey y'all, this week we are talking about how to build new habits, which is one of my favorite things to teach and talk about. I feel like I say that every time, I just really like to teach and talk about all the things I teach and talk about all the time on here. Which is why I'm teaching them and talking about them.
But this is one of the tools that I've actually been using the longest in my coaching business. But before we get into it, I just want to share something that I think is kind of related to what we talked about last week, which is I haven't been feeling very well. Which not my favorite thing, right? I love to feel super well in my body. And yet I have a body that doesn't always feel that way, don't we all.
And last week we talked about failure. And I think that's related because when we don't feel well, sometimes we stop doing some of the stuff that we do when we're feeling better.
So, I know I talked last week about my little, tiny running practice. And I did that for exactly three runs and then I started feeling not very well. And so on the day that would have been my fourth tiny run, I decided not to run. And by I decided not to run, I mean I pretty much stayed my ass in bed. So it's not like I got up and did all my other stuff and worked and didn't run. I didn't do anything.
And, I know, which we talked about last week, that's exactly the kind of thing where many of us then will fall out of our habit. We're like, “Well, I missed one, so basically everything's ruined. And I guess I'm just not a person who runs.” And it's interesting because even with years of being a coach this is an area where I still need to and do coach myself that like nothing's gone wrong. I'm not a failure, I haven't failed at my running practice.
It's part of the flexibility of having a long-term practice, a long-term habit is to be able to make space for when things don't go according to plan and don't go according to the habit. And knowing that I can just get right back to it when I feel up to that. And that's an amazing thing because like I'm always saying all the time, life is always going to be full of these ups and downs. And if we have to do things perfectly, we're fucked because we're not going to be able to do things perfectly.
All right, that leads into the tool we're going to talk about today, it's my habit building tool, I call it Too Small To Fail. So you know from last week that I actually think failure is great and something that is required for growth. And if we want to create big things in our lives, get new jobs, start businesses get promotions, learn new skills, all of that, we're going to need to be willing to fail along the way.
But when it comes to habit building, I have this tool, Too Small To Fail. And it's not that failure is a problem, but the whole point of the tool and the naming convention of the tool is that a lot of times when we're trying to build a habit, we try to build it in these big chunks. And the chunks are so big that they're actually really easy to fail at.
And when instead we use little, teeny, tiny chunks it's actually much easier to do the habit than to fail at it because the chunk is so very tiny and doable. It actually in many instances requires less effort to do the thing than it would to even talk ourselves out of it.
And this is such a great antidote to procrastination, analysis paralysis, and perfectionism. Because procrastination is when something seems like it's too big and going to be too much of a pain in the ass, we don't want to do it, so we don't. Analysis paralysis is like we're like thinking too hard about what we should be doing first and like what it entails and like what is the way to go about it. And then we don't do anything because we get paralysis. And then perfectionism is of course wanting to do it all perfectly, and then we don't start because we know we can't do it all perfectly as I'm always saying.
Now, I know from experience that a lot of y'all will not like this when you first hear about it because there's something very sexy and exciting about imagining ourselves like just suddenly having this amazing new running habit. Or just suddenly understanding this software completely in every way. Or just suddenly writing the whole report and it's all perfect and we don't even need to edit it.
But that is not how things in real life happen most of the time. In fact, almost never is that how it happens. And instead, we're usually just being like very stressed out and like biting all of our fingernails off and like drinking six coffees and having a glass of wine and feeling terrible about ourselves because we didn't start on the thing. And we know that we're just going to have to do the whole thing later, probably in a rush.
So you can use this tool for literally any single thing you want to accomplish. Especially anything you feel intimidated about, anything you've been wanting to do for a while, but you've been putting off. Big projects, like I mentioned earlier new software you have to learn. That’s something I had a client specifically work on this with.
But the example that we're going to use today is let's just say your boss has asked you to create a huge PowerPoint presentation for the CEO. And your brain is totally losing its mind. The PowerPoint presentation needs to have this beautiful grand overarching vision.
And it needs to really sell the CEO on why she should choose to do what you are planning to do. You're going to ask for resources and you're going to ask for maybe even like let's say, changes to structures and processes, changes to the way things are happening at work now. And it's really important that this PowerPoint deck be amazing.
And if you're like most of us, your brain is like, “Ah, I don't even know how to get started. What if she hates it? What if she hates it? I already hate it. I didn't even make it yet.” Right? And like cue the desire to just like bury your head in a blanket and watch Netflix.
How are you going to watch Netflix if your head is in the blanket? That's not an important question. But I know that that's how all of us are. We're like, “I just need a cuddle puddle. I need to comfort myself.” Because we're so scared about this huge thing, this big intimidating task.
So instead, what are we going to do? We're going to use the tool Too Small To Fail. Now, when you think about this tool, you're going to like have your big, huge project in mind. Again, we have our PowerPoint for the CEO, and your brain is going to look at that and go, “Wait, how do I apply Too Small To Fail to this? Like this is huge, like no part of it is small, it all has to be perfect.” And your brain is going to like want to get kind of whipped up into a tizzy about it. That's okay.
Here's what we're going to do though, what you're going to do is you're going to ask yourself, “What is one tiny thing I can do to get started on this?” And like the tiniest thing you can think of divide it in half, divide it in half again.
So most people when they come to me, they'll be like, “Well, the tiniest thing I can do is write an outline of the entire presentation and everything it needs to accomplish.” That is not the tiniest thing you can do. That's not even remotely the tiniest thing you can do. That's a huge thing, your brain still thinks that's too big. It doesn't want to do it, it's still stressed out.
So instead, it's like what if you started by setting aside like, literally five minutes in your workday today. Five minutes people, everyone has five minutes. I don't care how busy you are, you can find five minutes to set aside to this. And just ask yourself, what are five things I need to make sure I include in the presentation? Not the five most important things, just five things I need to make sure I include. That's too small to fail. You just ask yourself something like that. And then we'll set another five minutes, right?
So this is actually how it is about building habits. It can be for breaking down projects, but I like to think of it as a habit builder because we're not just going to do it once, right?
So it's like we could start with we're going to do five minutes today, and five minutes tomorrow, and five minutes the next day. And do these like little, teeny chunks. So when we're trying to build longer term sustainable habits that are going to be regular habits, we want to start with these really small-time blocks.
Like with the running practice I started with three days a week, and I literally run for like two blocks y'all. By the time I'm stopping I'm maybe not even sweating. In fact, I'm probably not. That's how ridiculously small I'm talking about.
So again, if you're trying to build something sustainable that's going to be a habit in your career, you want to start with these super small chunks of time like maybe once a week, three times a week, maybe every day, I don't want to see you doing anything more than every day.
Now, if this is a project-based item that's not a longer-term sustainable habit then we can approach it a little bit differently. And then we're also going to think about when's the deadline that the thing needs to be done by?
There's no deadline that my running practice needs to be done by, that's just a habit I'm trying to build into my life. I'm going to build that extra slow and really extra sustainably because I know that when I push that too hard, then for me personally I'm like, “No, I don't feel like it.” And then I'll just stop. So that's one where I have to take it incredibly slowly in order to make it sustainable.
In the work life sometimes it's a little bit different. If you need to be up to speed on a certain software in, let's just say two months’ time, then you're going to plan back from that. And you're going to do too small to fail with the given timeline you have. But you want to start at least at the very beginning with something that feels too small to even give up on.
Like you want it to be so easy it's just a very easy win. When you think about it you like don't feel stressed in your body, you feel relief. Like five minutes, anyone can do that. Five bullet points, anyone can do that. And then we build up from there.
So, you know, let's say, I know I'm switching examples. Let's switch from the presentation for the CEO to the software example. If you need to know the software in and out in two months, we're going to start with these super small increments of time and you're going to get those quick wins. You're going to be like, “Oh yeah, I said, I was going to do it today for five minutes, I did it, 97,000 points. I'm awesome.” And then you're going to do that while it feels easy. And then we're going to start ramping up.
So the idea is not that we always only do five minutes forever. The thing is going from zero to doing five minutes is actually a huge step, because it's going from nothing to something. Once you already have the habit of doing something, any level of something, even teeny tiny something, it's much easier to build that up into longer chunks of time.
And a few things happen, for one, you get resilience against the discomfort you feel about the activity. But for two, you get a lot more comfort with the activity. There's a part of the human brain that just likes familiar stuff. Literally, even if the familiar stuff isn't stuff we like, our brain likes it because it's familiar. Last time we did it we like literally didn't die and our brain is like, “Okay, cool, this seems fine.”
So when you start with Too Small To Fail, you're able to go in and build that familiarity in those like little, teeny increments, in the little five-minute increments. And then once you have that familiarity you can ramp it up and spend more time learning or doing each time and it'll build on itself. But when we start building the habit very slowly, that's how we get that like beautiful, long term, sustainable habit.
And y'all, you know I teach and talk about work but as I always say, you can use this tool on anything. You can, like me, use it on a movement practice. You can use it on a software at work. You can use it to get your presentation done. You can use it to change all of your work habits. Anything you do at work that's habitual, you can use this to change all of it.
Now listen to me, do not use it to change all of it at once. That is not too small to fail, that is huge. We only want to change a few, like maybe one habit at a time. I know we're all overachievers here, I get it. You know I'm a recovering overachiever also. But that shit won't work and that's just a recipe for failure, not the kind we want to go for. That's a recipe for we're going to fail because we tried to do too many things and we didn't actually give ourselves a chance to succeed. That is not the kind of failure we want.
I mean, we're all going to get some of that sometimes because of who we are as people and we all are like always trying to try all the things and do all the things. So it's not that like that's bad, but that's not what we want to do on purpose, that's not the growth edge we want to be pushing. Does that make sense? If that doesn't make sense write in and write me questions because that's so important. I do not want that to go misunderstood.
Okay, let's go back to our other example now. So we understand about how we're going to build this slower sustainable habit, we understand how we can build a habit with a deadline. Then there's also a project. A project is kind of like a habit with a deadline, except for the habit might go away after the deadline.
If we're building a new skill, like a software by a deadline we're probably going to keep using that software skill after the deadline of when we need to learn it by. If we're making this big presentation for the CEO we are thinking about how do we create increments of work that are too small to fail and still get the project done by when the CEO needs to get it.
Here's the thing though, even if you're not always going to be building decks for the CEO, whatever you practice and learn while you build this deck can be an overall habit that you can create for your work life that can be useful.
So whatever habit you're creating with Too Small To Fail here on whatever timeline you have until you need to present that to the CEO, even if that particular task will go away once it's completed you can think about like, “This is how I do work. This is how I do work in my job, regardless of if the assignment is build this deck for the CEO, or if the assignment is like go collaborate with this other team to come up with compelling solutions for XYZ problem that we're having in the marketing funnel.”
It really doesn't matter because the way we do one thing is the way we do everything. If you know how to set up a habit at work, or in your life in any area, that's going to work for you in every area.
Okay, but I know that what all of you are wondering is, but what if I don't have enough time to do Too Small To Fail? I don't have enough time to do just five minutes today, five minutes tomorrow, and five minutes next week because I have to turn this thing around and 24 hours and I'm about to lose my mind with stress.
The good news is I have an answer for you. And it's still Too Small To Fail. It's a little bit different when you compress it like this, here's how I would think about it. With some stuff like building a long-term sustainable running habit you really need to do too small to fail in the way I've explained it because you're building up the habit, you're building up the muscle mass, you're building up the capacity, you're building up your airways, all of it, right?
But for sometimes, like when we're doing a work project and we just need to get something completed you can use Too Small To Fail as just an entry point. So a lot of times what will happen is when we get that big thing and it has the tight turnaround, we'll kind of, I don't know if you do this, I'm guessing you do. But I used to just kind of spaz about it. Right? Just be like, “Ah, how do I even? What do I do?”
It's kind of like the example with the big PowerPoint. Let's just pretend that needs to be ready in 24 hours. Then we're still going to go back to what I mentioned earlier, which is what's the access point? What’s the too small to fail access point, even if we're not going to stop after five minutes?
So the too small to fail access point there might be okay, what are five bullet points that need to be included? Okay, what are five more bullet points that need to be included? Okay, what are five more bullet points that need to be included? Okay, is this all the information that needs to be included? No. What else? Yes. Okay, let's put the bullet points in order. Right?
Whenever we have a limited amount of time to do something, which by the way is, you know, always then we just have to figure out what's the good enough version of this that we can do in the time we have. And when we get too obsessed with making things perfect then we don't make it the good enough version. Because we usually hyper focus on one little area, and then everything else is kind of like [inaudible], right? So instead, we want to think about getting each part to the good enough place so the whole thing can be good enough.
Also, I think that you will find that when you just get started on stuff, a lot of it does come more easily. A lot of times, what I see is that the part that is the most painful for most people is the part when they're feeling stressed before they get started. If they just get started, then they have a lot of ideas and they know how to get things done. And they usually know who to ask for the parts that they don't know how to get done.
Now there is one other key ingredient here, and that's how you talk to yourself inside your head. Because if you just get started and then you tell yourself your five bullet points are stupid and that the CEO will never approve them, you're not going to feel like finishing it. Again, you're going to want to get the Netflix and the blanket.
So this is key, too small to fail and speak kindly to yourself. That doesn't mean you lie to yourself and say these bullet points are amazing if you're like, these bullet points are actually only okay. It just means that you don't kind of shit all over yourself, okay? Just like don't be an asshole to yourself.
If your work needs to get better, make it as better as you can in the time that you have. Don't waste your time with empty self-criticism because that is pointless and will make you feel fucking terrible. Also, it'll make it a lot less likely that you'll finish the thing and have a good final product. Okay? Okay.
So let us review. When you want to build a long-term sustainable habit, do something on a deadline, finish a project at work, anything you want to do that you're not already doing. You can even use this to like speak up more in meetings.
The too small to fail there might be like, “Okay, in this meeting I'm going to say three words. And I'll do that in the next six meetings. And then after that I'm going to say six words.” I realize I'm getting like really granular and specific, but that is actually the way to do this. Because if you're like, “Oh, I'll just say a little bit of stuff.” Then you never know if you did anything or not. You never know if you met your goal.
So this kind of calls back to the goal episode where I also mentioned Too Small To Fail, which is we need to have clear deliverables so we can see that we've done what we said we'll do. And then we feel good about ourselves and that galvanizes us and gives us energy to keep going.
Okay, so I was reviewing and then I got distracted my own review. Here's the review. To do Too Small To Fail what you want to do is take the smallest thing you can imagine doing, cut it in half, cut it in half again, and then schedule it on your calendar.
And if it's something that's like a longer-term habit, you want to put on your calendar for little, tiny chunks of time regularly interspersed until that feels easy, and then you can double it or triple it. And you want it to always be what feels easy, and then make it a little bit bigger, and then make it a little bit bigger.
And your brain will definitely say that this isn't enough and won't make a big difference. But this is actually how sustainable habits are built. I've used it to build all kinds of sustainable habits in my own life. And I still do when I want to build new stuff, or when I need to rebuild something after like, you know, being sick for a while say.
And of course, if you have to do it on a timeline you can still use that in the slow process. And if it's a short timeline, the fast process is use Too Small To Fail as an entry point to get you going and then just keep using it over and over again, back-to-back until your thing is done.
Okay, now, here's the fun part. I want you all to think of something in your life that you want to do that you haven't been doing. And then I want you to use Too Small To Fail on that thing this week. Actually use it the way I talked about, do not do that thing where you just try to jump in and do it perfectly all day long every day on the first try. Do not do that to yourself.
Do it the way I taught you, set aside like maybe five minutes three times this week to start working on it. And then I want you to write me an email and tell me how it goes. Because I want to know what you're going to be creating in your lives with this. And if you run into trouble and need extra help, I want to know about that too. That's what this podcast is for. So let me know how it goes.
Thank you so much for listening to today's podcast. I've got some client openings coming up soon. You can learn more about them and about how to work with me at korilinn.com. Thanks y'all, have a great week. Bye
Thank you for listening to Love Your Job Before You Leave It. We'll have another episode for you next week. And in the meantime, if you're feeling super fired up, head on over to korilinn.com for more guidance and resources.
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