Last week I started a multi-part exploration of a great book I just read called Switch. We talked about the idea of ‘looking for the bright spot‘, i.e., look for what is already working to find clues on how to cause change in our own lives as well as create global changes.

I asked you three questions so that you would ponder what has worked for you in terms of your finances. A few of you shared comments. Thanks for that. It seems that setting a powerful goal is a great way to inspire change in human beings:-). You can still go back and comment on last week’s blog if you haven’t already. It really helps others see that they aren’t alone.

Today I want to talk about another aspect the book discusses…the Heath brothers call it shrinking the change. I want to relate this back to the powerful goal that I just mentioned.

Picture this…

There you are…laying on your death bed (I think we should rename that) and if you’re lucky enough to be cognizant, you’re ruminating back over a lifetime of experiences and relationships, evaluating how ‘well’ you lived your life, if your life was a success or any number of other evaluation methods human beings choose to use at the end of their days.

Have you ever wondered what ‘success’ really looks like? I mean, really…we see this word everywhere and yet the definition of success is nebulous to most people. It’s often (we think) tied to how much money we end up accumulating (NOT) or what position we rise to in our careers (NOT) or even how expensive our cars are or how big our houses are (DEFINITELY NOT). Then if it isn’t these things, what exactly IS success and how do we measure it?

A better question I have found is, “Do we need to measure it in the first place?”

Humanity seems all too focused on this strange judgment process of trying to figure out whether we did life right or wrong. And it seems to cost many human beings their happiness.

Shrinking the Definition (i.e., inspiring change)

What if we define success this way…

Success is a measure of how we live each moment. If we enjoyed the moment, we were successful. If we didn’t enjoy the moment, we weren’t.

Problem with THIS definition is that as humans, we’d then be focused with some illusive measure of ‘ultimate success’ by trying to figure out if we actually enjoyed more moments than not. And this is where we corrupt the entire process all over again.

You see, by looking back to the last moment and asking, Did I enjoy that moment? we have a way of altering what we’re doing so that we can enjoy more moments in the future, not so we can have a measurement at the end of our days.

By shrinking the definition of success, we then give ourselves a pure goal…perhaps the most pure goal of all…simply enjoying our gift of time here on earth.

Financial Success and Shrinking the Change

I mean your change as in your quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. What is we stopped focusing on Financial Freedom and instead focused on saving a quarter today, fifty cents tomorrow and maybe a dollar by the end of the week? Then we do it all over again.

By shrinking the goal, we’ve made the goal much easier to reach. By reaching smaller goals, we feel better about our ability to reach goals in the first place. Then we simply, over time, start setting bigger and bigger goals (if you want to) or, as is discussed in more financial books than I could list here, you become financially free because you got really good at saving a quarter here and a dollar there, and then investing it of course.

I don’t know about you, but this is so much easier for most people to handle. If you’ve ever been in a class (or taught said class) where the instructor led you through the terrifying exercise of determining how much money you’d need to ‘retire’ on if you were getting a certain amount of interest on that money, you know what I’m talking about. I’ve never seen so many human beings imitating the deer in the headlights stare before in my life.

It was in our first Money Camp for Grownups that I saw this look when Larry (bless his soul) walked our adults through this process. I took him aside after the workshop and made him process NEVER to do that to another human being. He agreed:-).

How will you shrink your goal(s) so that they are attainable and you look forward to reaching them, knowing that they are small enough to reach? All I want you to do right now is think about one goal you have…financial or otherwise.

Ask yourself if the goal is just too dang big. (We often let society dictate the size of our goal…stop doing that!) If the answer is yes, then shrink the goal so that the change that has to happen inside you is doable. Then figure out what you now need to do do to meet this smaller, bit-sized goal.

More next week. If you’re intrigued, go by the book!

Please leave your comments for others to see. Tell us how you will shrink a goal and how it will make changing easier for you.

As always, just something else to think about.