The Almost Invisible Habit That Leads to Jaw-Dropping Results
Yes, Really
I was having coffee with a friend recently, someone smart and capable, who was talking about a big career change he wanted to make.
He had it all mapped out, the courses he’d take, the networking he’d do, the portfolio he’d build.
It was an impressive, ambitious plan.
A month later, I asked him how it was going. He sighed. "I haven't started," he admitted. "Every time I look at the list, I just feel… stuck. It's too much all at once."
Sound familiar?
Who hasn’t been there?
We have these big, important goals. We know what we want to achieve.
We might even know the steps we should take.
But the sheer size of it all can be paralyzing. We look at the mountain ahead and, instead of taking a first step, we stare at it, maybe feeling a rising tide of anxiety or self-doubt.
So, often, we do nothing.
Why Our Grand Plans Go Nowhere
For years, I thought the answer to achieving big things was to make even bigger plans, find more willpower, and “hustle harder.” That’s the message we're getting.
If you’re not making massive leaps, you’re not trying hard enough. I'd psych myself up, dive in with HUGE energy for a short while, and then, almost inevitably, I'd burn out or get overwhelmed.
The project would stall, and I'd be left feeling like I just wasn't cut out for big achievements.
I didn't realize for a long time that this "all-or-nothing" approach, this idea that we have to conquer the entire mountain in one go, often works against the very way our minds are wired.
Big, sudden changes can feel threatening.
They can trigger resistance, perfectionism, and that nagging inner critic that loves to tell us all the reasons we're going to fail.
The Day I Stumbled Onto Something Different
My mind shift came not from a burst of inspiration, but from a place of quiet frustration.
I had a writing project I’d been putting off for what felt like an eternity. It wasn’t even that I didn’t want to do it; it felt too big, too amorphous.
One day, I told myself something almost laughably simple: "Just open the document. That's it. Just for five minutes. You don’t have to write anything amazing."
Because the commitment was so tiny, that usual wave of internal resistance didn't show up.
Five minutes? Even my inner critic seemed to shrug in compliance.
So, I did it. And the next day, I thought, "Okay, five minutes again. Maybe just one sentence."
Slowly, almost without me noticing, something started to happen.
Those five minutes sometimes turned into ten, or fifteen, not because I was forcing it, but because once I’d overcome that initial inertia, the work began to flow.
There were no dramatic breakthroughs, no sudden transformations. It was an almost invisible effort.
The Quiet Power You Already Possess
Weeks later, when I looked back, I realized a huge chunk of that "impossible" project was done.
It hadn't been conquered; it was gently, consistently nudged into existence.
This is the essence of the "1% principle," or continuous improvement. It’s not a complicated system.
It’s a fundamental shift in approach: focusing on tiny, consistent, forward movements rather than giant, sporadic leaps.
Why does this work so much better for so many of us?
It bypasses overwhelm. Small steps don't trigger our brain's threat response in the same way massive goals do. As I learned through my interest in how our minds work (insights very similar to what you find in cognitive behavioral approaches), reducing the perceived size of a task makes it far less likely to activate avoidance patterns.
It builds REAL momentum. Each tiny action completed is a small win. This isn't just a nice feeling; it helps build self-efficacy, the belief in our ability to get things done. And momentum, once started, tends to continue.
It uses the incredible force of compounding. One percent improvement might seem insignificant today. But that tiny gain, repeated consistently, adds up. Over weeks and months, those small efforts accumulate into something truly substantial. It's a powerful, natural principle.
Putting This "Invisible Habit" to Work in Your Life
So, if you're stuck with a goal that seems too big, or tired of that cycle of starting strong and then fizzling out, what if you tried this quieter approach?
Determine ONE thing you want to move forward on.
Now, what’s the absolute smallest, almost unnoticeable, action you could take towards it today?
Not what you think you "should" do, not what would look impressive, but what feels so manageable it’s almost impossible not to do it?
Could it be writing just one email? Reading two pages of that book? Sketching one idea for five minutes?
The initial size of the step isn't the point.
The point is to start moving, however slowly, and to do so consistently.
Some days, you might find yourself doing a little more, naturally. Other days, just hitting that tiny baseline is the win.
And that's okay.
This isn't about perfection; it's about persistence. I know letting go of that "all-or-nothing" thinking, that cognitive distortion that tells us if we can't do it perfectly, we shouldn't do it, was a massive key to making real progress.
The Real "Jaw-Dropping" Part Isn't Just the Goal
This approach won't give you those overnight transformation stories that fill our social media feeds.
It’s not flashy.
But here’s what I’ve found, and I see in others who embrace this: the "jaw-dropping result" isn't just achieving the goal, though that often happens, sometimes surprisingly quickly when you look back.
The truly profound change is what happens within you.
You build trust in yourself. You learn that you can stick with things. You discover a calmer, more sustainable way to make progress.
You start to see that growth doesn't always have to feel like a battle. What if the most valuable outcome of this "almost invisible habit" is not just what you achieve, but the resilient, capable person you become?
What tiny step is waiting for you?