Why Tiny Things Matter Most in Life
Tiny Things & Big Impacts
It is hard to grasp that tiny things can make the biggest impact on our lives.
Little details are essential in achieving long-term goals. Take for example planning a 3000-mile cross-country trip.
Checking the brake pads on the car, or cleaning the windshield may be tiny plans that actually save your life.
When I tackle a small problem I can do so with ease, but if I wait for it to grow large it becomes difficult if not impossible to solve.
And yet, I continue to put off the little things in favor of tackling what I see as the big picture.
Have you noticed how a little red pepper completely changes the taste of a steak? So what is it about ‘tiny’ that carries so much importance?
In thinking about this question I remembered when I was in college a lifetime ago. I studied chemistry, zoology, and physics. I remember very little about the periodic table, anatomy, or formulas of acceleration.
What sticks with me, though, is how everything is made up of miniscule things. Atoms. Seconds. Drops. Decibels. Molecules. Vibrations. Tiny things must be pretty valuable.
Being Small
And then I realized I must be made of tiny things too…tiny habits, actions, and ideas as well as atoms, molecules, and cells.
Did you ever stand on the top floor of a very tall building in the city and look down at passersby on the street below?
I think of my place in the Universe and realize I am a speck in time and unseen by billions of people. I am tiny.
Yet I have avoided anything creative for decades because I felt my ability was too small.
I had tiny thoughts, tiny skills, and tiny motivation and couldn’t see the importance if I didn’t have the skill of Tschaikovsky.
What I failed to see is the value of tiny.
Electricity was discovered by a man with a tiny idea…and another…and another until there was light.
Little steps to a changed life
I recently read “Atomic Habits” by James Clear (which I highly recommend, by the way!) and he extols the power of tiny habits as a way to make effective and permanent changes in your life.
How many times have I tried to lose weight, meditate, read a thick book, or avoid clutter with great intentions and little follow-through?
With great gusto I, like millions of other people, begin at New Year’s to give up chocolate, go to the gym and get 10,000 steps every day. It never sticks! And now I know why. I have forgotten the importance of ‘tiny’.
New Year’s Resolutions are grandiose plans. Maybe God took giant steps in creating the planet and everything on it in six days (resting the seventh), and Neil Armstrong took a giant step for mankind on the moon.
But I am not God and the steps that Armstrong took on the moon were the culmination of millions of tiny ideas, experiments, designs, practices, and failures.
Tiny steps.
Bigger isn’t better
In our consumer culture today, the ‘bigger is better’ refrain is killing us. We live in a culture where we appear wanting if we don’t have the biggest and best car, education, or front lawn.
The result of living with these expectations and desires is a sense of failure when we don’t measure up.
However, if we put a macro lens—a type of magnifier for seeing very small things—up to our minuscule achievements that don’t seem to measure up to walking on the moon, we can see incredible designs, beauty, and strength.
Let’s look at a few tiny things to better understand why we might want to embrace the little things in life.
Five Good Reasons to Stick to Tiny
- Tiny steps. Whether it is a habit I want to break or to add on, if I take tiny (No! Teensy!) steps I shall achieve my goal. The key is consistency.
- Tiny commitments. It’s impossible to keep more than one or two grand commitments consistently over time. I review my commitments every week in a journal and every month to see which ones are small and doable, and which ones are growing like weeds and need to be cut out. My commitments are growing smaller and at the same time are becoming more consistent.
- Tiny servings. I like to eat and, like most people, do it three times a day. I actually eat a very healthy diet…but tiny doesn’t really describe the portions. I am making a (tiny) commitment to smaller servings and know that it will be a process to reverse this bad habit. Breaking these habits will be a process not unlike walking on the moon.
- Tiny self-criticism. Like everybody, I have made mistakes in decisions, judgments, and actions. Then they became giant disasters in my mind. I realize I am grandiose in my thinking about my failures. Come on, Ardis. — “Aint’ nothin’ you’ve ever done that couldn’t be forgiven.” It is so much easier to forgive myself when I keep things in perspective.
- Notice tiny blessings. Even though I am sometimes handed a huge gift from the Universe, I take my greatest pleasure in watching a mushroom grow overnight, in studying ants and how they work together in a community, in seeing a baby smile, or in smelling homemade soup simmering. When I turn a macro lens on my life I am overwhelmed with tiny blessings.
How do you live ‘tiny’?
Will you make a tiny commitment to give it a try?
[Photo credits from Unsplash: tiny-flower-by-sreenadh; tiny-feet-by-lisa-cope; view-from-skyscraper-by-erik-eastman;long-stairway-by-bekky-bekks;lens-ball-by-margot-richard;ants-prabir-kashyap]
