Start Small Live Big

If you want more out of your life, this book is for you. You may want increased happiness in your relationships, more robust careers doing work that you love, or you may want to rebound from failure and let-down while focusing on the things that are most important to you, your families, and friends. In today’s culture of “Go Big or Go Home,” it’s easy to forget that big things started out small. The messages we receive every day from the media can make us feel as if we aren’t doing enough, and that we probably can’t progress to living the life we wish we had. We may feel focused for a short time, working on our career or our health, but then slide back into what we know and what is comfortable. We want to make changes, but it seems like change can be too difficult to maintain. A few years ago, my then preteen daughter was experiencing a lot of anxiety. She would freeze and have trouble controlling her breath. We went to doctor after doctor, and one finally explained it to her by saying that she had an army in her brain that was very strong. Stronger than it needed to be and that we needed to teach her brain that she was safe. I was curious about this, did my own research, and discovered that the amygdala, a limbic system structure that is located deep within the temporal lobes of the brain and is involved in many of our emotions, especially those that are related to survival, was at the core of her anxiety. Your amygdala controls your “freeze, fight, or flight” response, and with my daughter, it was in overdrive. When this happened, the front cortex of her brain shut off and she no longer had access to rational thought or problem solving. At this time, I was working one on one with my coaching clients. There were times when I would ask them to do something out of the ordinary, and I would see a response in them that I recognized as similar to my daughter’s. They didn’t have anxiety attacks, but they felt a resistance they couldn’t quite understand or explain. I decided to work with them using the same methods I had used with my daughter. We broke big steps into small chunks and worked with those small chunks until they could be achieved. With this method, we could essentially tip-toe right past the sleeping amygdala and push the threshold of what they could do further and further, until soon they were accomplishing things they hadn’t been able to do before. These new actions and small successes bred more motivation, and soon my clients were pushing past obstacles they hadn’t been able to overcome in the past. You may struggle with figuring out where to make change in your life right now. It may seem like life isn’t going your way, but you aren’t exactly sure what you would change. Or perhaps you are aware of some changes you need to make in a few areas of your life, but you’ve just never been able to get moving to figure out the steps to make real change happen. By implementing my C.H.A.S.E. framework I teach in this book, I’ve seen people get extreme clarity on areas of their lives in which they were unsatisfied. They were able to lay out a path they could follow step by step in order to achieve success. I promise if you follow the steps I outline, you will begin to develop a roadmap. If you take the time to examine the areas of your life I discuss in the pages ahead and map out your small steps, you will begin to find renewed motivation, feel energized, and see the success that has eluded you in the past. You will understand what has been holding you back and will be able to see a vision for your future that you hadn’t imagined before. Why be the type of person who waits and delays living your Big Life? Be the kind of person who takes the steps necessary to accomplish your goals and, over time, shows the world what consistent and focused effort can do for someone who starts small. I’m not saying everything will be simple. In fact, the steps and activities I outline in these pages take hard work! But I can promise you that doing nothing will keep you right where you are, never progressing or moving forward toward the life you deserve. The process of starting small that I share is time-tested and has worked over and over again for people of all ages. It is a process that, once you understand how it works, you can use repeatedly as you identify new goals and go after them. It will become a new way of looking at the world and attacking challenges. Your responses to obstacles will change as you start living in this new way. You wouldn’t have the desire for more in your head if you weren’t meant to find a way to make it come true. In the pages ahead you’ll find the foundation for creating a life you are happy with. I would encourage you to read the first three chapters in order. These lay the foundation for how to shift your thinking and create your plan of action. You’ll understand the basics for the C.H.A.S.E. framework and how to apply it to your life. The remaining chapters cover different areas of your life, such as finances, career, and relationships. These chapters can be read in order or you can skip around to an area of your life that you want to get started on changing. Chapters four through nine contain stories of people who have begun to live Big Lives and how to be creative as you think through plans of your own. The final chapter, “The Power of Stating Small” holds a challenge for you to start taking action today. You can find out more about the people in the stories as well as download any worksheets and challenge guides on my website, www.startsmalltolivebig.com. Let the Start Small framework guide you into living that Big Life you’ve been dreaming of.