Mastering the Art of Small Changes for Big Results: Field Guide

By Andrea Bednar

Mastering Small Changes for Big Results is a 'how to' book to make the changes in your life that you've been wanting to make but haven't been able to make or haven't been able to make stick. Its simple instructions and emphasis on making changes from your "Goldilocks Zone" (not to hard, not too soft) will support you to make those changes and to

• Language: English
• Publisher: PoP Associates
• Release date: Nov 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9798987371404

Book preview

Introduction:

Welcome to the Small Changers Community

Congratulations! Your commitment to experimenting and exploring with Mastering Small Changes to live a life of satisfaction is worth celebrating. You are embarking on a learning journey that can support your love of life, your aliveness, and your health.

Those benefits are unlikely to happen though without a willingness to practice. To experiment. To try things out and to fail occasionally.

If you want to transform your life and sustain that transformation, you are in the right place. The way to create those changes is through experiments and practices.

For most of us, it’s not sustainable to simply declare we are going to make a small change, do it, and have it stick. So, we start with specific, conscious, and repeated actions (which we’ll call practices) that you create to see the results they produce for you.

In this program, you’ll experiment with practices that you draft and design. This is a practical and experiential way to discover what works best for you. If you’ve also joined our Mastering Small Changes program (https://www.

andreabednar.com/mastering-small-changes-for-big-results), you’ve found a place of support and a push to begin (and sustain) everything you’ve been saying you ought to do. In this program you’ll experience the satisfaction of doing things you’ve been wanting to do, knowing you ought to do, thinking about trying, and/or considering stopping.

Whether you are in the Small Changers group or you are working through this Field Guide on your own, you are either excited about signing up and committing to use practices to change your life, or you find your mouth dry and your stomach a bit nauseous (otherwise known as ‘afraid’). You might be both.

Before I go any further, I want to let you know that in these first chapters I’m going to talk about my program, Making Small Changes for Big Results. While I created this Field Guide for people who may never join a program, I know that at least half of you would be better served by joining our community. Discover for yourself which path is the most supportive.

I truly hope that you do the work for which you bought this book and that you get the results I know you’ll get if you do.

My goal is your success.

I created the Mastering Small Changes program and Field Guide because, honestly, I personally needed it. It turns out that structure, community, and accountability produce miracles for all of us. Me included.

There are courageous (and afraid) Small Changers who’ve gone before you and they’ve all made it.

You will too.

For the courage to change your life one smart step at a time - my deep respect,

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Note: if you are working through this workbook on your own, use this Field Guide structure for at least six months — exactly as it’s designed — before you consider altering the design or creating your own way of engaging.

I find that people don’t always know what results they’ll get from simply following the design. Nor do they know all the experiments that went into this design and why we know it works.

They also don’t realize the results they have right now are from doing it their way.

So please – use the program as it’s designed for at least six months.

If you are doing this solo and find yourself wanting the structure of the group, you are always welcome. Go to https://www.andreabednar.com/mastering-small-changes-for-big-results and join us.

It takes many hours to make what you want to make. The hours don’t suddenly appear. You have to steal them from comfort.

Derek Sivers

Getting Started

Preparing yourself — being fully ready to start — is critical for success.

Jumping in without forethought creates a shaky foundation for sustainable change. Spend time thoughtfully prepping and creating your experiments before each month begins.

I’ve designed the Mastering Small Changes program based on some of the latest research and thinking about behavior change, starting (and stopping) habits, as well as my experience in running and participating in these programs for more than a decade.

After the past decade, I’ve learned that if you want your new practices to change your life, you’ll find more success engaging with them as experiments. No one fails at an experiment. We learn what works and what doesn’t. The experience of trying and experimenting works much better for continued motivation than aggressively powering through something that feels hard or uncomfortable and must be done or else you are a failure.

Experiment and practice first, and make habits later.

I’m not a fan of the belief that failure is bad. Failure is good for building muscles of innovation, sustainability, and resilience. Experiments that allow for trial and error are an excellent way to create and discover practices that create profoundly satisfying lives.

However, most of us don’t know which experiments are going to provide us with these satisfying lives. We’re sure that if we just do this thing or stop doing that thing, our lives will be happy and healthy. Unfortunately, we’re frequently wrong.

Rarely do we know the right practices for the changes we want to make. If your belief system sounds like, If I would just do X my life will be perfect! it will be hard for you to take on an experiment or practice that has failure built in because failure is too risky for those who have to have perfection before learning.

When you take on practices as experiments, you allow yourself to keep changing and tweaking. To learn. This allows you to monitor and measure the impact as well as track your experience of doing the practice.

Challenge yourself to experiment and question what you’re certain is true, to wake up newly to your routines