This week’s creative habit that I am chewing on is the idea of small changes:

Large changes can only be made with small incremental adjustments. Focus on what you can change on a micro-level before getting wrapped up in bigger issues. Simplify all problems down to something more manageable.

Going for a walk one day helped drill this idea in further as I realized all the plants and flowers around us had sprouted from a seed. And humans evolved from simple organisms.

Feldenkrias is a therapy for the body which helps strengthens the brain and body connection. In order to achieve this, many of the movements are done on slow, simple rotations and stretches which helps the participant become more aware of their body.

If you want to learn a new piece of music, you must start at the first bar, first note. Get that bar of music down and move on. If you start jumping ahead too quickly, which is a form of panic and scarcity (the inner critic worrying that you have better ways of spending your time), you are going to cobble together a poor performance. One mistake will compound on another because you refused to slow down and focus on the fine details.

Here is the kicker: You and I are the ultimate small change. Mass media has the ability to program us to feel inconsequential, but our thoughts really do radiate huge changes. Culture is the culmination of how we feel about various topics. Your mood, your thoughts, and your choice of words every day, inside and out, have a huge impact on the world even though you cannot always sense it.

Large changes in our lives and in society can only be addressed on smaller levels, all the way down to the quality of your breath.