The Power of Tiny Steps and Consistent Wins

Let me guess. You’ve got that note on your phone, the one titled “GOALS” or “THIS MONTH” or maybe desperately, “GET IT TOGETHER.” You open it sometimes, usually at 11 PM, when the house is quiet and the distractions fade, and a wave of guilt and exhaustion washes over you. It’s a physical feeling, right in the chest. “Write book,” it says. “Get fit.” “Learn Spanish.” “Start business.” That list is like a monument to the person you feel you should already be.

You close the note. You’ll start tomorrow. You promise yourself that tomorrow, the motivation will strike. But tomorrow comes, and the sheer size of it all feels like staring up at a mountain you’re supposed to climb in flip-flops, with no map, and a backpack full of rocks. The peak is shrouded in clouds. You don't even know where the path starts. So you don’t take a single step. Instead, you scroll, you tidy a random drawer, you re-organize your streaming watchlist—you do anything but that. And later, in a quiet moment, the whisper comes: “What’s wrong with me? Why am I so lazy?”

I want you to hear this, and I mean really hear it, from me to you: You are not lazy.

We’ve been sold a lie. It’s a story that says success only comes from huge effort and iron willpower. We see the finished products—the published books, the fit bodies, the new businesses—and we compare our messy start to their perfect ending. We think the gap is our fault. But what if the problem isn’t you? What if the problem is right there on that screen, in those huge, fuzzy, giant goals?

Think about it with me. We would never call a person lazy for failing to lift a car. We would say the job was just too big. Their body isn't broken; the task is crazy. Yet, we call ourselves lazy for not “getting fit” from the couch in one week. We call ourselves undisciplined for not instantly “writing a book” while busy with work and life. We try to lift a car every day and then, when we can’t, we blame our strength. We blame our heart. We decide we’re just not good enough.

I’ve been there. I live there some weeks. I’ve spent months “planning” to write—making big outlines in nice notebooks, naming characters, making the perfect playlists—for projects that never got a first sentence. I’d end those days feeling a hollow, useless sadness. The space between the big dream in my head and the empty page was a hole I couldn’t cross. I believed my own story: I was all talk, no action. A dreamer, not a doer.

But the change for me—and this is what I really want to share with you—didn’t come from a new app, an earlier alarm, or trying to hate myself into working harder. It came from the opposite. It came from letting go. Not letting go of the dream, but letting go of the huge first step. It came from making the goal so stupidly, laughably small that my fear, my resistance, and my tired mind had no fight left. The goal wasn't to write a chapter. It was to open the file. That’s it. Just open it.

When we start there, at the very bottom of the mountain with a step so small it seems silly, something changes. We calm the panic. We prove the lazy voice wrong. And that’s the path we’re about to walk together. We’re going to break down why those big goals stop us, what our brains really need, and how building a ladder of tiny, sure steps is the only way to reach the heights we look at with both want and fear. This isn’t about working harder. It’s about working smaller. And it changes everything.

1. The Tyranny of the Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal

Let's get real about why we love those big goals so much. I know I do. You probably do, too. We write them down: “Lose 50 pounds.” “Make a million dollars.” “Write a book.” They sound exciting. For a moment, we feel like the person who can do anything. We see a bright picture of our future self.

But I need to tell you a secret I learned the hard way. Big goals often stop us before we even start. They don't help us move forward. They hold us back. They live too far in the future. The space between where you are now and that big dream is full of questions. "How do I start?" "What if I fail?" "What is the first thing I should do?"

Picture your own mind. When you say, “I will write a book,” what happens next? You might feel good for a second. But then your brain tries to find the path. It gets lost. Should you write Chapter One? Should you do research for a year? Do you need a new desk? The choices are too many. This feeling stops you. It’s not that you don’t want the book. It’s that the job of starting the book feels like facing a giant. You don't know where to hit it first. So you freeze. You walk away.

That’s what I mean by tyranny. A big, scary goal becomes a quiet bully. It doesn't help you. It just watches you. It says, “You are not working. You wanted this, but you are just sitting there.” We let these goals judge us. And we always feel guilty.

Here’s another mistake we make. We think planning the goal is the same as doing the work. Writing “write a book” down feels like a win. It makes us happy for a minute. But it is just a wish. It is not a real step. Then time passes. The page is still empty. The story in our head changes. We go from “I want to write a book” to “I am a person who fails.” That is not laziness. That is a normal human feeling when a job is too big and scary.

I want us to see the truth. The big dream is not the problem. You are not the problem. The problem is being told you must jump from the ground to the roof in one jump. You can’t. And when you can’t do it, you blame yourself. You think you are weak. But the plan was wrong. We must stop looking only at the roof. We must start looking at the first stair. Forget the big goal for a second. Just focus on the next tiny step. And that makes all the difference.

2. Your Brain’s Secret Need for “Wins”

Now, think about your big goal. Let’s say it’s “get a new job.” What does that look like to this old part of your mind? It sees risk. It sees the chance of failure, which feels dangerous. It sees months of hard work, which means using a lot of energy. And it sees the reward as being far, far away. There’s no quick treat. So what does your mind do? It tries to protect you. It says, “Stay where you are safe. Don’t try.” And we listen. We call this feeling laziness, but it is not. It is your mind trying to be careful.

Here is the important part we all miss: Your mind does not run on far-off dreams. It runs on small proofs. It needs to see evidence, and it needs to see it often. This is what a “win” is. I don’t mean a trophy. I mean the smallest sign that you did something good. A “win” is a signal to your mind that says, “That was a good move. Let’s do that again.”

Remember the last time you finished a small task. “Text a friend.” “Wash the dishes.” You felt a little better, right? That was a win. That was your mind giving you a little good feeling. That feeling helps you want to do the next thing.

Now, look at your big goal. If your only win is “Get a New Job,” how many weeks do you work with no win? Your mind gets no reward. It is running on empty. We would never make a car drive across the country without stopping for gas. But we ask our minds to work for months toward a huge goal with no fuel. It cannot work. You are not weak. Your mind is just hungry.

This is why the tiny step is so powerful. When you change your goal from “Get a New Job” to “Update my resume for five minutes,” you create a win you can get right now. You did it! Your mind gets that little good feeling. It makes the next step, “Save the resume,” feel easier. You do it. Another win. A little more fuel. You are building a path of success with very small stones.

We have been trying to push ourselves with a finish line we cannot see. But the push comes from starting, not from waiting. Action comes first, especially tiny, easy action. That action creates the good feeling, and the good feeling helps us take the next step. We have had it backwards. We wait to feel ready to start the big thing. The secret is to start a tiny thing to feel ready. You are not broken because you don’t want to climb the mountain. No one does. But you might be willing to put on your shoes. So start there. Give your wise, careful mind the little win it needs. It will help you more than you know.

3. The Magic of the “Stupid Small” First Step

This is what made the difference for me, and I know it can for you, too. We’ve talked about the trouble with big goals and how our brain needs wins. Now, let’s talk about the fix. It’s about making your first step so small it seems silly.

Picture your biggest goal right now. Now, break it down. Don’t just make it smaller. Make the first thing you have to do tiny. We are talking about a step so small that saying “no” to it feels foolish.

Here is what I mean.

“Clean the house” feels impossible. But “clean the kitchen sink” is a job you can finish.
“Write a book” is huge. But “write one sentence” is almost nothing.
“Run a marathon” is a year of work. But “tie my shoes and stand outside” takes one minute.

Do you see it? We stop trying to reach the big finish line. We just try to do one tiny, easy action.

Why does this work? Because it stops the fight in your head. That voice that says “I’m too tired” or “It’s too hard” has nothing to say to one sentence. You take away the pressure. You are not trying to be perfect. You are just doing a very small thing.

Here is the real secret I learned: Action creates motivation. Motivation does not create action. You and I wait to feel ready to start the big task. But that feeling often never comes for scary things. What can come first is a choice to do a tiny thing. You might not feel like writing a chapter, but you can write one sentence. You might not feel like a full workout, but you can put on your shoes.

Let me give you an example from my life. “Write every day” was a goal I always failed. I felt bad about it. Then, I changed the rule. My goal became: “Open the document and write one sentence.” Just one. Some days, my sentence was bad. “The cat sat down.” Then I would stop. But I had done my thing. I got my win. And you know what? Most days, having the document open made it easy to write a second sentence. And then a third. The one-sentence goal was not a wall. It was a door. It got me past the hardest part: the start.

This is our secret now. Progress doesn’t come from one big jump. It comes from a tiny nudge. You build your confidence and your skills not with big acts, but with small, regular ones. They add up. One sentence a day is 365 sentences in a year. That is a real start. Five minutes of walking a day is over 30 hours of movement in a year. You are building a life by moving small stones, one at a time.

4. What Progress Really Looks Like

We need to talk about the word “progress.” I think we get it wrong. You and I have been taught to see progress as something big and loud. We picture a finish line. We imagine the "after" photo. We think about the launch day, the published book, the final number on the scale. We see progress as a destination. A thing we can point to and say, “Look. I made it.”

But I believe this idea is stealing our happiness. If progress is only the big result, what are all the days in between? We call them "not enough." We call them failure. We look at a week where we didn’t finish the report but worked on it for ten minutes each day and think, "I got nowhere." We feel disappointed.

What if we have it all backwards? What if real progress is not the loud event, but the quiet, daily choice?

Let me tell you how my thinking changed. I used to only measure my progress by big results. If I didn’t write a whole chapter, the day was lost. I felt terrible. Then, I started measuring something else: Did I keep my small promise? My promise wasn’t to write a chapter. It was to show up. Progress became “opening my notebook.” Progress became “sitting at my desk for five minutes.” Some days, that was all. But I did it. Over time, I saw those days were not failures. They were the foundation. They were the practice of showing up, which is the most important skill.

This is what you and I must see: Progress is mostly invisible. It happens under the surface. It is the root growing deep in the ground long before you see a plant. When you make your goals small, you get to see progress every single day. You get to go to bed and say, “I did my tiny thing.” That sentence is powerful. “I put on my shoes.” “I wrote two lines.” “I read one page.” That feeling—where your plan and your action match—is fuel. It builds something better than one big win: it builds who you are.

Think about this. If your only goal is the big outcome, who you are is shaky. You are “someone who wants to be a writer.” You are “someone trying to get fit.” Your sense of self is tied to a maybe-future. But when your goal is the small, daily action, your identity becomes solid, right now. You are “a person who writes each day.” You are “a person who moves their body each morning.” You are, by your own actions, a doer. The big result becomes something that often happens after you become that person.

We must move from being fixated on outcomes to being dedicated to consistency. The outcome is not fully in our control. The boss might say no. The scale might not move. But showing up for our tiny task? That is almost always in our control. We can’t control if we get the job, but we can control updating our resume for five minutes. We can’t control writing a bestseller, but we can control writing one sentence today.

When we make this change, we take our power back. Progress is no longer a far-away prize. Progress is the private win you give yourself every time you keep a small promise to yourself. It is the choice, made again and again. It is the trust you build with yourself, little by little.

So today, look for progress where you usually ignore it. Did you choose the better option, even once? That’s progress. Did you stop and breathe? That’s progress. Did you take your tiny step? That is the deepest kind of progress. Celebrate that. Trust that these tiny victories are building your success. We are not just finishing tasks; we are building a stronger, truer self with every small thing we do.

5. Building Your Ladder, One Rung at a Time

So, how do we do this for real? We’ve talked about the why and the what. Now, let’s talk about the how. This is where we make a plan you can start right now. Let’s build your ladder together.

Think of your biggest goal not as a jump, but as a ladder. Your job today is not to reach the top. Your only job is to find the very first rung and stand on it. The rest of the ladder isn’t built yet, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s better.

Let’s use an example you know. Let’s say the goal is “Write a Book.” That’s the top of a ladder we can’t even see. It’s scary. So we build it from the ground up.

Here is how we build it. Do this with me for your goal:

• Say the Big Dream. Write it down. “I want to write a book.” That’s the top of the ladder in the sky.

• Find a First Big Piece. Break it down. “I want to write the first chapter.” This is still high up, but we can see it now.

• Break it Again. “I want to write the first page of the first chapter.” This is closer. This is like the top of your front step.

• `Find Your Tiny First Step. Break it until it is very small. “I will open my computer and write the first sentence.” There. That is your first rung. It is right at your feet. You can do it now.

See what we did? We moved from a scary dream to a simple action you can finish in one minute. That first step is not the book. But it is part of the climb. It is real progress.

Here is the big thought shift: You must stop thinking about the whole ladder. Just look at the one rung in front of you. Planning is looking up at the whole tall ladder. Climbing is putting your hand on the one rung you can reach. You don’t need to see the top. You just need to trust this one step.

And please, be kind to yourself. Some days, that first rung will feel too high. You will be tired. On those days, you can make the rung even smaller. If “write one sentence” is too hard, make it “open the document and type one word.” If “go for a walk” is too much, make it “put on your shoes.” The goal is not to be a hero. The goal is to keep touching the ladder. To show yourself you are still in the game.

Doing this builds more than a project. It builds trust in yourself. Every time you stand on that small rung, you tell yourself, “I keep my promises.” You are not just building a book or a better habit. You are building a stronger you.

So let’s start. Right now. Take your big goal. Find your first tiny rung. Make it so small it’s easy. Then, do it. Don’t think about step two. Just do step one. Be happy you did it. You have started to build your ladder. Tomorrow, you will find the next rung. And the next. This is how we climb. Not with a big, fast jump, but with small, sure steps. One at a time. You can do this. Let’s build it together.

Final Summary

The next time you feel that old, familiar feeling—the one you call laziness—I want you to stop for a second. I want you to breathe. I want you to ask yourself a new question.

Don’t ask, “Why can’t I get started?”
Start asking: “What is the smallest possible thing I could do right now?”

This is the biggest idea I can share with you. We began with a story you tell yourself—the story that you are lazy. We end with a true story: you are not broken. You are a person with a good heart and a busy mind, trying to live in a world that loves big, flashy stories of overnight change. That noise is not for you. You can let it go.

The real path is simpler. It is gentler. And it works. The real path is in the one sentence you write today. It is in the one short walk you take. It is in the one healthy meal you make. These are not small things. They are the most important things. They are the pieces that build every big success.

I need you to know this isn’t about dreaming smaller dreams. It is about using a smarter plan for your biggest dreams. We stop trying to eat the whole elephant in one bite. We just eat one tiny bite. Then another. These small actions change how you see yourself. You stop being “the person who wants to change” and start being “the person who is changing.” One small step at a time.

This is how you build a life of real progress. You trade the cycle of big plans and big let-downs for the quiet power of small promises. Promises you keep to yourself. Every tiny step you finish is a message to yourself: “I can do this. I am reliable.” That belief is worth more than any one goal.

So here is my last ask, and I am doing this too: Today, don’t do something big. Do something small. One thing. Make it so easy that doing it is simpler than skipping it. Then, do it. And when you do, feel good about it. Really. Pat yourself on the back. That is the whole plan.

The big dream shows you where to go. The tiny step gets you moving. You have everything you need to start right this minute. We are all learning this together. Think smaller. Start tinier. Watch yourself grow more than you imagined, one peaceful little step at a time.