One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

Kaizen Tip

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Some of my clients, including Grace, thrive when they are “assigned” to leave answers to their small questions in my voice mail. But not
everyone has a therapist (and not every therapist likes an overflowing voice mailbox). These people might try calling a friend or relative.
If that’s too scary, another possibility is writing their answers down in a journal or leaving messages on their 
own
answering machines.

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Negative Questions: A Toxic Mental Brew
The power of questions to shape experience and behavior is not limited to dynamic, productive
applications. Countless times, I’ve heard my clients direct painfully harsh questions toward themselves.
You may have found yourself saying one of the following:
Why am I such a loser?
How could I be so stupid?
Why does everyone else have an easier life than I do?
These questions also have the power to engage the brain, shining a merciless, white-hot light on flaws
and mistakes—real ones as well as imagined or exaggerated ones. They spark intellectual energy, all
right, but that energy is used to churn weakness and emphasize inadequacies.
When I hear clients—especially those who are clearly lacking in self-esteem—damaging themselves in
this way, I ask them to employ another kaizen technique: to call my voice mail once a day and tell me one
positive thought they’ve had about themselves, or one positive act they’ve engaged in, no matter how
small. Within a month, most clients report that the problems that drove them to counseling seem less
overwhelming. They also start to view therapy in a more positive light, as a journey requiring courage
and stamina, not a procedure needed because they were flawed and in need of fixing.
Kaizen Tip
If you tend to berate yourself with negative questions (
Why am I so fat?
), try asking: 
What is one thing I like about myself today?
Ask this question daily, writing your answer down in a journal or on a sheet of paper you keep in a specially designated place.

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