The Ripple Effect: 6 Small Actions Can Have A Big Impact

“Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?” The concept referred to as the butterfly effect has been embraced by popular culture, where the term is often used to emphasize the outsized significance of minute occurrences” Jamie L. Vernon

First described by Henri Poincare1890, and later reported by Edward Lorenz during the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the metaphorical ‘butterfly’ effect was observed during analysis of his weather models. Lorentz noted, on a re-run of his model, that even a minute rounding difference inputs led to vastly different predictions of weather in the future. Specifically, he found that rounding one data input from 0.506 instead of entering the full precision 0.506127 value resulted in a completely different weather scenario [ Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, 1963 ]. Hence, the analogy of a very small change [like a flap of a butterfly’s wing] could lead to a dramatic and large impact [like a tornado]. One point of clarification: I fully agree that the mathematics underpinning the analogy [ chaos theory] and recent publications suggesting this effect doesn’t occur in quantum mechanics are by no means definitive. But for purposes of this article, I'm using the metaphor that very small changes today have the plausible effect of a big impact in the future.

 If butterflies flapping wings and creating tornadoes is an irrational metaphor , let’s change our metaphor to the “Ripple Effect”, often used colloquially to mean “multiplier”. How information, for example, can start from a single source, and be disseminated and passed from community to community to broaden its impact. The end result in these scenarios is the same—bigger impact. 

 "It’s amazing, if not intuitive, that small changes in our actions can manifest big impacts."

 I’m particularly cognizant of one must practice what they preach. Over the last 3 years, I’ve made a concerted effort to follow 6 small actions each week. Measuring impact is never easy—and prone to biases in definition and interpretation. Nevertheless, with 3 years of outcome assessment, I am sufficiently confident [ Level 5 evidence, opinion], that they have, in part, been helpful in my career—and life. To remember them a little easier, the acronym I.M.P.A.C.T contains following actions: 1. Improve a small amount each day (let’s say 1%), 2. Make first 5 minutes count (in almost everything you do), 3. Positivity daily means a rewiring of your lens on work and life, 4. Alone doesn’t mean lonely- it’s means time to think, 5.Create time-or at least reset your priorities and 6. Today—why wait for tomorrow to start? 

 The biggest hurdle for me was the last one. It’s easy to over-think and put off actions—even the smallest of ones---to tomorrow. And when tomorrow comes, we say to ourselves, “today’s not a good day, I’ll start tomorrow”—and so on. What stops us from acting? I don’t entirely know—but for me it was the desire for immediacy—I wanted results quickly. But here’s the problem. Big impact quickly also requires big changes immediately. And big changes today are the reason we say “not today, I’ll start tomorrow”. The alternative strategy is much more appealing-- small and seemingly insignificant actions to my day, sustained over 1 year, have yielded a demonstrable and noticeable impact.

    “The 365 day small daily actions towards bigger impact challenge”

First Action: Improve 1% per day

James Clear uses example of small changes daily over 365 days amounting to big returns on the investment. By aiming to be 1% better every day you can be 37% better at the end of the year [ 1.01 exp365 ]. Improving by 1 percent isn’t particularly notable– sometimes it isn’t even noticeable– but the outcomes can be impressive. Set a goal and begin small. Obvious, right? But actually quite hard to do. Whether it’s a broad goal like, “I want to work smarter this year”, or “I want to be healthier” or “I want to manage my time better”—or a more specific goal like “I’m going to learn to snowboard/cycle/kayak” or “I’m going be a better mentor to my graduate students”. It doesn’t matter, I found it really helpful to pick something and stick to it. I’m a big believer in creating a personal vision statement [Vision] to guide you where you want to go as one approach to set your priorities. The hardest thing to do is deciding “what not to do” –so choose your actions for improvement wisely.

Second Action: Make the first 5 minutes count

 There are many ways to interpret this action. I've tried to ensure a morning routine that sets my day. The first 5 minutes of my day, a virtual meeting, a conversations, a break in the middle of the day, and non-work activities are all places I try to maximize. Julia Cameron, author of Artists Way, urges a ritual of “three pages of longhand writing, strictly stream-of-consciousness” every morning. I realize that’s far more than 5 minutes—but the idea is a good one. I’ve taken to ensuring the first part of every morning is a few minutes of planning efficiencies and activities in my day. My calendar is often set well in advance, but I have found that 5 minutes of focused thought on how I can improve my day has material impact on how I’ve changed the way I plan, book and organize activities. 

On an average day, we spend approximately 16 hours awake. The first five minutes, I’d argue are critical how your day will go.. When we first awake, evidence from EEGs suggests our brain activity is typically in an alpha state [relaxation state] eight to 13 Hz, or cycles per second. This state is one in which we are more open to new ideas. So, it’s a perfect time to use this for creating a better day ahead. It’s very good return on investment representing less than 1% of your awake time.

"What would happen if you never wasted another minute of your life? How would your life look? Would you cure cancer, win a Nobel peace prize, figure out time travel so you can relive the minutes wasted, and improve upon them? Probably not. However, there are many impactful things you could do if you took the time to be intentional. If you are off track, a simple exercise you can do right now is take 5 minutes and plan out your next 5 hours." Teronie Donaldson

Third Action: Positivity is choice-Rewire yourself 

There are over 109 million websites on Google on the topic of “positive mindset”. There is nothing really that is particularly novel—or innovative—about suggesting that rewiring ourselves to think of the good (instead of the bad) in our days. The act of a small action of simply “smiling”, for example, may actually improve our life satisfaction. Patrick Seder in an analysis of Facebook photos entitled “Intensity of Smiling in Facebook Photos Predicts Future Life Satisfaction” suggests that authentic looking photos with smiles are strongly correlated with happier people with better life satisfaction. Marmolejo-Ramos and colleagues also suggest that, by smiling we also perceive the actions of others most positively. [ Your face and moves seem happier when I smile: Facial action influences the perception of emotional faces and biological motion stimuli. Experimental Psychology, 2020]. 

 It’s hard to know what comes first: Do generally happier people just smile more, or does smiling in itself contribute to rewiring ourselves to be happier. Lyubomirsky writes “when people feel happy, they tend to feel confident, optimistic and energetic and others find them likeable and sociable. Happy people are thus able to benefit from these perceptions.” The challenge we all face, though, is the tendency to feel more pain when experiencing losses than pleasure from equal gains. As Kahneman and Tversky stipulated in 1979, this implies that optimism has a cost. But the effects of pessimism are not small, with those holding the most pessimistic expectations experiencing a 21.8% reduction in longterm well-being. [ David de Meza, Chris Dawson. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2020]

Fourth Action: Alone time—Find some!

In a hyperconnected world, what's wrong with some “me time”. There are some who take the spirit of being “alone” to its near extreme. Explorer with the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, Adam Shoalts, represents one end of the spectrum, anchored by a seemingly genetic disposition to a 'call of the wild'. He ascribes “solitude” as a state of being alone or remote from society. “I don't always do solo expeditions” says Adam; however, there's definitely an advantage to having a minimal disruptive footprint in nature. That is, if you want unfettered access to the natural world. “I've looked an arctic wolf in the eyes” remarked Adam during our recent conversation with me [www.myorthoevidence.com]. While there are many benefits ascribed to time alone, the relevant one for me has been the importance of ‘time’ to reflect and think. Ultimately, all the advice in the world won’t make a difference, if we choose never to ‘act’. And for that matter, action must align with our internal barometer. Time alone is a critical part of thinking through some complex issues—that for the most part, will only be resolved when we find an internal clarity. [Read more on Alone].

Fifth Action: Create time-or at least reset your priorities

Nothing really begins without prioritization. Creating new time, or re-prioritizing the time we have is an essential action. Even small changes can be profound. Simple changes I’ve personally made include finding more time in my day through new time and new efficiencies. I started setting my alarm clock to 10 minutes earlier. This ensures me 5 minutes in the morning to think through my day. As important, I’ve re-constructed how I envision my week. I look at the weekly weather forecast and use it to guide days for outdoor meetings and activities. With a reasonably flexible schedule I’ve been able, for the most part to reconstruct the week to ensure maximum opportunities for workflow, outdoor meetings, and protected time for thinking. Does it always work? No. But it works with enough certainty to have already delivered a huge impact since its inception over 3 years ago.

"The power for creating a better future is contained in the present moment: You create a good future by creating a good present." Eckhart Tolle

Sixth Action: Today—Why wait for tomorrow to start?

Today. Begin today. Pushing off what needs to start today has impacts on your wellbeing, evidence suggests. “When we procrastinate, we voluntarily delay an intended action”. writes Timothy Pychyl. He describes the habitual procrastinator as experiencing cognitive dissonance. Basically, a state that occurs when our actions and beliefs are in conflict. If you’ve done this (or know somebody who does this) it is easily illustrated in the following example by Pychyl:  “Imagine a task is due on Friday. It is now Monday morning. It is preferable to work on this task Tuesday as opposed to Monday. In other words, the preference for Tuesday is greater than the preference for Monday. Tuesday arrives. Ah, it’s preferable to work on this on Wednesday as opposed to Tuesday. Wednesday arrives. Again, it’s preferable to work on this Thursday instead of Wednesday. So far, so good; these are transitive relations. Then Thursday arrives. Oops, we think, it is now preferable that we had begun on Monday.” Eric Jaffe suggests those who procrastinate have higher levels of stress and --in the end-- lower well-being. He discusses the major misperception about procrastination in that it’s an innocuous habit at worst, and maybe even a helpful one at best. He writes, "sympathizers of procrastination often say it doesn’t matter when a task gets done, so long as it’s eventually finished. Some even believe they work best under pressure. They argue that it conflates beneficial, proactive behaviors like pondering (which attempts to solve a problem) or prioritizing (which organizes a series of problems) with the detrimental, self-defeating habit of genuine procrastination. If progress on a task can take many forms, procrastination is the absence of progress."

A Final Word: Small is the New Big!

In a time of instant gratification and big changes, I’ve learned to accept a commitment to 'small as the new big' in my daily life with an eye on the long game. With 3 years of working on this approach, I decided to share 6 small actions that have personally helped me make an impact in my work and life. You may agree with some, disagree with some, or have your own actions in mind. Whatever the case, the one thing you can do is --just get started.