{"id":15229,"date":"2022-05-07T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-07T11:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?p=15229"},"modified":"2025-01-14T00:20:46","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T16:20:46","slug":"baby-steps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/","title":{"rendered":"take baby steps"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

this is section 2.5 of introspect<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re being tentative, when actually baby steps are a great unbalanced, wholehearted, enthusiastic lurch into the unknown.” \u2013 @OliveFSmith<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can be useful to compare and contrast different domains in your life, particularly ones where you are successful in contrast to ones where you are unsuccessful. I\u2019m successful at writing. It comes easily to me, it feels abundant, I can write tremendous volumes of text. And a large part of this has to do with the fact that I\u2019m always happy to \u201cjust start\u201d. I write lots of tweets. I used to write lots of Facebook status updates, answer questions on Quora, post on forums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, I think some of the areas of my life where I\u2019m most embarrassed and ashamed of my are \u2013 my many failed attempts at trying to sustain a fitness habit, and my failures with scheduling. And when I think about it, in both of those cases, I get into a silly cycle where I feel really bad about not having done very much for a long time, and I feel compelled to try and \u201cmake up for lost time\u201d by going as hard as I can. And this is always a bad idea, because I push myself too hard, and the experience is unpleasant. And while my conscious self might be rah-rah about trying to do more, I\u2019ve come to suspect that it\u2019s my subconscious self that protests the torture, and flinches away from it. And in any drawn-out battle between the conscious and subconscious, the subconscious invariably wins, because the conscious eventually falters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I\u2019ve come to believe that a big part of the power of baby steps is about teaching your subconscious that doing small little things is simple, pleasurable, fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What people struggle with:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBasically, you can’t skip steps,
you have to put one foot in front of the other, things take time, there are no shortcuts,
but you want to do those steps with passion and ferocity.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and Blue Origin<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shame of doing something \u201ctoo small\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The funny thing about baby steps is that people very often feel that they\u2019re \u201ctoo small\u201d. I\u2019ve had many extremely roundabout conversations with people about this. They just feel in their hearts that they should be doing something \u201cbig\u201d, even though they haven\u2019t yet actually accomplished anything \u201csmall\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can be a very tedious conversation to have because people will insist for months and years that, no no, they don\u2019t need to use the light weights, they\u2019re not that weak, they\u2019re not that pathetic, they\u2019re not losers. Just give them the heavy weights and tell them how to lift it. It can\u2019t be done! You can\u2019t lift heavy weights before you first lift the \u201cbaby\u201d weights. There is no shame whatsoever in lifting lighter weights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If anything, if <\/em>we had <\/em>to use shame for some reason \u2013 and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s helpful, really \u2013 mayyybe we should be relatively less ashamed of lifting light weights, and more ashamed of being so arrogant and willful about the weight that we\u2019re \u201csupposed\u201d to lift, that we prevent ourselves from making the progress that we want to see. But honestly, shame isn\u2019t even necessary in this entire operation. We can do without it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you can do:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLife is a series of baby steps along the way and if you add up these tiny little steps you take toward your goal, whatever it is, whether it’s giving up something, a terrible addiction or trying to work your way through an illness. When you total up those baby steps you’d be amazed over the course of 10 years, the strides you’ve taken.\u201d
\u2013 Hoda Kotb, NBC news anchor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Make a todo list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[[Journal]]. Quickly put one together in a sketchy draft on a piece of paper or your favorite notes app. If you already have one, you can use that too, although I\u2019m personally always a fan of starting fresh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Investigate each item on the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[[Ask questions]]. How big of a task is it? Some people fall into the trap of listing entire projects as todo items. That\u2019s like putting \u201cslay dragon\u201d on your todo list. You want to figure out what the sub-tasks are, which might be \u201cacquire sword\u201d, \u201cpractice slaying 10 smaller beasts\u201d, \u201cacquire armor\u201d, and so on. Make the tasks as small and specific as you can. Get into the habit of persistently, repeatedly asking, \u201cWhat\u2019s the first step?\u201d And then do it.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Do lots of little things and articulate what you\u2019ve learned from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[[Do 100 things<\/a>]]. People tend to underestimate how much they can learn from doing small things. If you think that you didn\u2019t learn anything from doing something, try doing it again, a little bit differently. And then pay attention to what was different. That\u2019s where the learning is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. [[Celebrate your wins]], however small.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This can seem counter-intuitive. The conventional assumption seems to be something like, celebrations are for big milestones \u2013 getting a promotion, getting married, winning a medal or trophy. And certainly, those are things worth celebrating. But small wins are worth celebrating too! In fact, I would argue that they are more <\/em>important to celebrate, because things are more precious and fragile when they are small. They need encouragement and nurturance even more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take Baby Steps<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recognize that cathedrals are built one brick at a time.
Every Olympic gymnast had to first learn how to walk.
They then kept learning.
It might not be realistic to expect yourself to become an Olympic gymnast. But that\u2019s not the point.
The point is to take the next baby step in front of you.
Release any shame or disdain you might have for the \u201csmall\u201d. Simple doesn\u2019t mean easy.
You want to measure your progress against what you\u2019ve done so far. Not against what you think you might someday be capable of doing. Done is better than perfect.
It\u2019s okay to make mistakes. You can learn from them.
The only thing that matters is that you take another step.
And then another one.
What\u2019s the next step?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

this is section 2.5 of introspect. “I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re being tentative, when actually baby steps are a great unbalanced, wholehearted, enthusiastic lurch into the unknown.” \u2013 @OliveFSmith It can be useful to compare and contrast different domains in your life, particularly ones where you are successful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1371,1372,1265],"class_list":["post-15229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unsorted","tag-copes","tag-dominoes","tag-introspect"],"yoast_head":"\ntake baby steps - @visakanv's blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"take baby steps - @visakanv's blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"this is section 2.5 of introspect. “I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re being tentative, when actually baby steps are a great unbalanced, wholehearted, enthusiastic lurch into the unknown.” \u2013 @OliveFSmith It can be useful to compare and contrast different domains in your life, particularly ones where you are successful […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"@visakanv's blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-05-07T11:19:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-01-13T16:20:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Visakan Veerasamy\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@visakanv\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Visakan Veerasamy\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Visakan Veerasamy\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3e6b165830fd1623c501696e0c9efc0f\"},\"headline\":\"take baby steps\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-07T11:19:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-13T16:20:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\"},\"wordCount\":1061,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"copes\",\"dominoes\",\"introspect\"],\"articleSection\":[\"unsorted\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\",\"name\":\"take baby steps - @visakanv's blog\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-05-07T11:19:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-01-13T16:20:46+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3e6b165830fd1623c501696e0c9efc0f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"take baby steps\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"@visakanv's blog\",\"description\":\"Buy my first book FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD today! gum.co\/FANbook\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3e6b165830fd1623c501696e0c9efc0f\",\"name\":\"Visakan Veerasamy\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb0258044c14d754c4ec19351286486b5cb4b0dbed3927a8e318a3da693d7ea3?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb0258044c14d754c4ec19351286486b5cb4b0dbed3927a8e318a3da693d7ea3?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb0258044c14d754c4ec19351286486b5cb4b0dbed3927a8e318a3da693d7ea3?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Visakan Veerasamy\"},\"description\":\"@visakanv\",\"sameAs\":[\"instagram.com\/visakanv\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/visakanv\",\"youtube.com\/visakanv\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/author\/visakanv\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"take baby steps - @visakanv's blog","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"take baby steps - @visakanv's blog","og_description":"this is section 2.5 of introspect. “I always love it when people say ‘baby steps!’ to imply they’re being tentative, when actually baby steps are a great unbalanced, wholehearted, enthusiastic lurch into the unknown.” \u2013 @OliveFSmith It can be useful to compare and contrast different domains in your life, particularly ones where you are successful […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/","og_site_name":"@visakanv's blog","article_published_time":"2022-05-07T11:19:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2025-01-13T16:20:46+00:00","author":"Visakan Veerasamy","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@visakanv","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Visakan Veerasamy","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/"},"author":{"name":"Visakan Veerasamy","@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3e6b165830fd1623c501696e0c9efc0f"},"headline":"take baby steps","datePublished":"2022-05-07T11:19:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-13T16:20:46+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/"},"wordCount":1061,"commentCount":0,"keywords":["copes","dominoes","introspect"],"articleSection":["unsorted"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/","url":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/","name":"take baby steps - @visakanv's blog","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-05-07T11:19:00+00:00","dateModified":"2025-01-13T16:20:46+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3e6b165830fd1623c501696e0c9efc0f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/baby-steps\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"take baby steps"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/","name":"@visakanv's blog","description":"Buy my first book FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD today! gum.co\/FANbook","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/3e6b165830fd1623c501696e0c9efc0f","name":"Visakan Veerasamy","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb0258044c14d754c4ec19351286486b5cb4b0dbed3927a8e318a3da693d7ea3?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb0258044c14d754c4ec19351286486b5cb4b0dbed3927a8e318a3da693d7ea3?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/eb0258044c14d754c4ec19351286486b5cb4b0dbed3927a8e318a3da693d7ea3?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Visakan Veerasamy"},"description":"@visakanv","sameAs":["instagram.com\/visakanv","https:\/\/x.com\/visakanv","youtube.com\/visakanv"],"url":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/author\/visakanv\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15229"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15495,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15229\/revisions\/15495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visakanv.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}