Greetings and Salutations, blog readers!

Today, we are talking about making small incremental changes to ensure true change and growth.

Like many people, I set out to so some healthier better habits, and overall habits to enrich my life and my experience on this floating rock in space, with the new year.

Unlike some people, I am determined to not fail. I have discussed my changes and habits I seek to address with myself, my journal, and my therapist. I have been hard at work mentally preparing for the life I am working towards building.

And the weird thing is, it hasn’t been a sudden, starting January 1^st, my life looks totally different, change.

Instead, it is the 3^rd, and it will likely be the 5^th or so before this blog goes live, and my life doesn’t look TOO different, but, one can see small changes.

I ate a healthier breakfast, a healthier lunch. I did some stretching. I am following my day in my high performance planner, and I have been hard at work making sure I am changing, but, also doing so slowly, making small steps and changes.

This planner I am using goes with a companion book, High Performance Habits, but I also think it goes well with Atomic Habits, which will really help you hack yourself and change your ways.

Today is all about the changes mentioned in Atomic Habits, small changes. Showing up every single day and making a small step in the direction of the life I want, this is how real, true, lasting change becomes implemented in my life. Tomorrow, I hope to maybe wake up earlier, and maybe work out before work, because sadly it isn’t easy to squeeze working out into my working schedule, and I think I would feel more accomplished if I did it in the early morning. I feel if I work out before work I will not only get my body moving, but my blood pumping will hopefully help my metabolism and energy levels be higher as well.

I want to make sure I am nailing my goals, and not feeling like I have failed something before I begin, so today, I have tested those waters, tomorrow, I will strive to wake up a little earlier, to make sure I can do something, even a little stretching and a small workout, and the day after, a little earlier, until I can do the kind of work out I want to do, before work, and still be ready to work by the start of the business day.

And, knowing this, all starts with incremental changes. Planning, and making moves for those changes you plan for, has to be adaptable, based on the changes you slowly make. You make incremental changes to lead to real, true change that lasts.

Incremental changes leads to lasting big changes, and since the changes I want are huge, and in many ways go against the way I was raised, I need to make smaller changes to grow.

I am not blaming my family or my upbringing, but they will also be the first to tell you they are lazy, and, anyone can see, they tend to do the bare minimum.

I want more than the minimum.

I want to BE more than the minimum, and I want to do more than the minimum.

But changing the habits made over the course or 35 years on this planet, is hard to do. The best way to do it, truly, is to make small changes, that build over time, and slowly change my lifestyle.

I am not trying to crash diet lose weight. I am trying to build healthier habits that lead to an overall healthier lifestyle, my size has nothing to do with it, as my goals all revolve around being fit and healthy.

So today, I made small changes. And tomorrow, I will make a few more, and I hope to report back in a few weeks, about all the small changes I have made, and I hope to be able to share all the ways my life is now different, drastically, due to incremental changes.

Thanks for reading,

Abbi