One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way

Resolution:
Save money.
Small Steps:
1. Set yourself the goal of saving just one dollar per day. One way to do this is to modify one daily
purchase. Perhaps you can downgrade from a large, relatively expensive latte to a small, plain
coffee. Maybe you can read a newspaper for free online instead of buying one at the newsstand. Put
each saved dollar away.
2. Another tactic for saving a dollar a day is to share a daily indulgence with a friend. Buy one large
coffee and pour it into two smaller mugs. Buy one newspaper and swap sections.

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3. If you save one dollar each day, at the end of the year you’ll have $365. Start a list of things you’d
like to do with that extra money and add one idea each day. You’ll learn to think about far-off, more
sizeable financial goals rather than immediate, cheaper pleasures.
Resolution:
Meet more people.
Small Steps:
1. Think of one place you might go (perhaps a place of worship, an adult education class, or an athletic
social group) to meet people with interests similar to yours. Write it down.
2. Every day, think of one additional location or group and add it to your list. Remember that this is 
not
a to-do list; you are simply generating ideas.
3. Think of someone you know who has a full and happy social life. Ask this person where he or she
has met friends.
4. If you like the idea of joining a certain club but feel that you’re too busy, keep your initial level of
commitment very low. You might plan to attend just 
one
meeting—and promise yourself to leave
after only fifteen or twenty minutes. This will help you build an appetite for social activity without
wrenching your schedule.
Resolution:
Ask for a raise.
Small Steps:
1. Start a list of reasons you deserve more money for your work. Every day, add one item to the list.
2. Spend one minute a day practicing your request to your boss out loud.
3. Increase this time until you feel ready to make your request in person.
4. Before you actually ask for the raise, imagine that the boss responds poorly—but that you walk out
the door feeling successful anyway, feeling proud of your effort. (This step—really a form of mind
sculpture—helps you manage any lingering fears.)
Resolution:
Use time more productively.
Small Steps:
1. Make a list of activities that take up your time but are not useful or stimulating to you. Watching
television, browsing through stores, and reading things you don’t find pleasant or productive are
frequent sources of poorly used time.
2. Make a list of activities you would like to try that you feel would be more productive than your
current ones. Each day, add one item to the list.
3. Once you have identified more-productive activities that you’d like to try, go ahead and give them a
whirl—but in a very limited, nonthreatening manner. If you want to keep a journal, do so—but
promise yourself to write just three sentences per day. If you’d like to take a yoga class, you might
begin by just sitting in the studio’s lobby and watching students pass in and out. Soon, you will find
yourself participating more fully in your activity. And you’ll hardly notice that you’re spending less
time in front of the television.
4. Each day, write down the name of one person whom you feel is living a productive life. Then write

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down one thing that person is doing differently from you.

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