It took about six weeks and when I was done nobody said a word. Nobody even noticed.
And then they were completely blown away.
I’d head out on my morning walk as the sun came up. Just as I rounded the corner back to my street, I’d slide on some gloves and pick up a few heaps of trash and weeds. I’d take it back to my place, slide it into the yard waste, the recycling, and that was it. I was on my way inside to brew up some coffee and get on with my day. A few minutes added to my walk, but nobody had a clue.
Until they did.
After six weeks, the whole area was green and clean. No weeds, no bottles, no nothing. And most of the neighborhood just scratched their head, unclear that anything had even happened.
What looks different over there?
Baby steps mean progress. They mean effort. They mean you did the work to move things forward, even if it’s just a handful at a time. That little handful that means everything.
“There is only one way to eat an elephant, a bite at a time.”
Desmond Tutu
And it works for all sorts of things.
Pavel Tsatsouline builds strength by greasing the groove.
Tim Ferriss writes books by writing two crappy pages a day.
My personal favorite?
Andy Dufresne escaped the inescapable Shawshank Prison, by smuggling a handful of his cell wall to the yard every day.
A fistful of freedom. That’s all Andy needed to keep hope alive.
It reached a crescendo eventually, in the end “Andy crawled to freedom through five hundred yards of shit smelling foulness I can’t even imagine, or maybe I just don’t want to. Five hundred yards… that’s the length of five football fields, just shy of half a mile.” But at that point he was 20 years in and there was no turning back with just two laps to go.
Most people think Andy waited until 1966 to escape from Shawshank Prison. Most people think he waited for just the right moment, lightning storm rolling in, tunnel finished, rope on hand, the Warden’s shoes shined up and at the ready. Then he made his move.
The truth is he made his move decades before, the first time he dug his rock hammer into the wall to carve his name. He reinforced that move each and every time he walked out into the yard and dropped a fistful of the Shawshank wall from his trouser leg. Every little stone got him that much closer to freedom.
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become,” James Clear wrote in Atomic Habits, he went on to specify that, “this is one reason why meaningful change does not require radical change.” Andy was casting votes often, not through radical or elaborate plans, but through small daily actions.
It’s no wonder he walked around that place like his shit didn’t stink.
It takes discipline, it takes bravery, but only in the smallest amounts. And those small contributions, those small votes for your future self can change your whole outlook.
Maybe you’ll cast those votes by taking up piano. Maybe you’ll take the smallest of baby steps towards better health. Or maybe you’ll scratch that itch as a writer, posting a weekly blog, and seeing where that takes you.
It’s not deep work, but it gets deep in a hurry, one fistful at a time.
Go for it. Nobody will even notice.
And then they’ll be completely blown away.
