The Union Club of Cleveland’s Lawrence McFadden, CMC, GM/COO, believes you don’t have to be great to get started—but you must get started to become great.
What is the butterfly effect? It’s no more than a physic/chaos theory, but it relates to psychology as well. The butterfly effect serves as a metaphor for life in a chaotic world. By making small changes, and sticking to them over the long haul, you can make very big changes in your circle of influence.
For example, taking in in a few more or a few less calories every day will make you thinner or fatter over the years. Similairly, if you repeat positive words of affirmation or a mantra to yourself it can change the voice in your head from negative to positive. Small, kind gestures to those around you every day will change the quality of your relationships. The differences seemingly small changes make can be remarkable. Here are some others:
- Get Up 15 Minutes Early. Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise. Actually, this just gives the individual a headstart on the day. Try waking up 15 minutes earlier than usual for a week or two and feel the difference in how your day plays out. You can use this time to relax, center yourself, meditate, or practice mindfulness (being present for yourself). You could journal, pray, exercise or do almost anything that gets you focused and into a place ready for action. When you start the day focused, centered and on a positive note, you will see and feel a difference in yourself and your approach to the day’s expectations.
- Get Moving. Exercise addresses our physiological and psychosocial needs. No one medicine comes close to having all the effects that exercise does in the body and brain. Exercise alters the part of the brain that controls anxiety and stress. Similar effect can be achieved in both low- and high-intensity workouts. During these sweat sessions, our brains produce endorphins that reduce pain. It can also help us maintain sharp thinking, learning, and judgment skills as we grow older. Exercise prevents or reduces weight gain and helps us sleep, too.
- Be Kind. Kindness makes us powerful. Forgiveness makes us better people. Self-realization makes us better human beings. Showing empath towards people can be the first small change to help you become a better person to have as a friend, boss, partner, or colleague.
- Be Thankful. If you talk with any successful person, they have one thing in common: gratitude. Being grateful can change your outlook and world for good. Once you start looking at things in this way you will have a completely different perspective on life.
- Stop Procrastinating. The more you put it off, the more it weighs on you. Stop putting things off. Do it now.
Making one small change in your life right now can bring a massive change. By adopting the habit of executing change right now, you will see that everything will start to fall in the right place. You will no longer be living for tomorrow, always hopeful and wishing that things will get better someday. The best thing is that you will start worrying less about what will happen tomorrow when you start tackling your to-do list today. In a way, you will be able to have better control of your life.