The Secret To Achieving Your Goals Is A Tool You Never Knew You Needed

Even with clear goals, great expectations, and a carefully plotted-out plan, many of us who seek to develop new habits or jettison old ones run into an immediate obstacle: One of the most difficult parts of changing is just getting started. That's why the best time to start is right away. Procrastination is the principal impediment to initiating a habit change. Large goals can seem intimidating unless broken into manageable steps. Kaizen, the practice of using small steps, can help you to avoid the threat response that frequently drives procrastination.

Although the kaizen technique is strongly associated with Japan, it actually originated with the U.S. military. Using the mantra of "continuous improvement," the idea was to make modest but steady alterations in how the Japanese businesses were run. The approach, which came to be known as kaizen in Japanese, was implemented widely and embraced enthusiastically by industries in the island nation, who would ultimately use it to transform Japan into an economic powerhouse admired throughout the world for the efficiency of its production and the quality of its products.

The little things can sometimes mean a lot. Often people who notice what seem like inconsequential details find that they can lead to dramatic results. In the factory of one of our clients, the workers were upset by the inaccessibility of their boss. They complained that they never knew when he was in and were annoyed that they always had to go through a secretary to speak to him, even for trivial matters. What we discovered was that he was using a separate entrance to get into his office each day. That maneuver may have saved him about 20 yards of walking, but it rendered him virtually invisible to his employees. We suggested that he lock the back entrance of the office so he was compelled to walk the extra distance through the factory floor every day in order to get to his desk.

This small change had a huge impact on company morale. Each day began with pleasant greetings and smiling faces. The boss was frequently able to solve little problems and provide quick advice as he headed to his office every morning. Taking a different route may have added five to ten minutes to his walk, but the investment in time paid off dramatically in the next worker satisfaction survey.

The secret of kaizen is that it operates below the radar of your brain's threat response. Touch a warm surface and your fingers will sense the temperature, but you're unlikely to experience any dramatic reaction. Touch a red-hot surface, on the other hand, and your hand will jerk back reflexively before your conscious brain has even had a chance to realize what happened.