An Introduction To Kaizen For Personal Goals
Kaizen means 'positive change' and more specifically is generally used to describe the application of continuous improvement through the use of small, incremental changes to your lifestyle – as opposed to anything big and too challenging.
So if your goal was to become a rock star, Kaizen would mean making lots of little changes to your lifestyle and habits to move you in that direction.
It might mean taking up guitar lessons, it might mean giving up some bad habits so you have more time and energy for practice, or it might mean saving a small amount of money each day so that you can eventually make a lot of money cumulative.
Either way, kaizen means taking little steps to eventually go a long way.
Why Kaizen Works
What makes Kaizen so effective is the simple fact that most people struggle when trying to make extreme changes in their lives. We are creatures of habit and trying to make huge shifts in our lifestyle requires a huge amount of energy and discipline – factors which themselves are finite.
Kaizen works wonderfully because each little change has real benefit but is easy to implement. What's more, these changes add up over time giving us a sense of reward and achievement.
Even more than that, making continuous small changes will make subsequent changes easier and easier. That's not only because you'll become used to changing but also because you'll have created the right conditions to make future change easier.
Believe it or not, it's easier to work out when you're saving $1 a day on coffee. Why? Because that $1 a day adds up to $365 a year. And that makes us feel richer. And that makes us feel happier. And that gives us more energy.
And that means we're less stressed and more full of beans in the gym. See the difference? The more of these little changes you make, the more they will build and grow and the more momentum you'll gain.
The Downside
But nothing is perfect and of course, Kaizen also has drawbacks. One downside is that smaller changes are also much easier to forget and to undo. This means there will be times when you might be taking one step forward and two steps back.
The trick here is not to get disheartened by this. This is relatively normal and no cause for concern. If you aren't moving constantly forward all the time that's not the end of the world: you just need to keep going and keep trying!
Alex Szaki