Small Steps forward: Finding Motivation after the Thrill is Gone
Small Steps forward: Finding Motivation after the Thrill is Gone
We’ve likely all experienced the disappointment that sets in when you fail to meet the goal you made on New Year’s and decide to give up altogether. It is so universal that it’s managed to secure its own day of the year on the second Friday of January: National Quitter’s Day.
But why does this matter? If you’ve made it this far into January, that is further than about two-thirds of people. That is not nothing.
We are conditioned to believe that transformation is dramatic: big resolutions, complete reinvention, and overnight transformation. Yet the most meaningful progress doesn’t happen in leaps. It happens in increments. After we give ourselves permission to pause, to land before we launch, the next step isn’t to accelerate. It’s to start small.
Small Changes That Stick
Small changes are often seen as insignificant, but they’re the only ones our nervous system can reliably sustain.
You can’t rely on habits to form through motivation alone. They form through repetition that doesn’t overwhelm.
In organizational contexts, small changes respect reality. They meet people where they are, not where a strategic plan assumes they should be. When leaders model realistic experimentation instead of performative transformations, they signal that psychological safety matters more to them than perfection.
Over time, these micro-adjustments become something bigger. A slightly different way of running meetings. A more intentional pause before making decisions. Using a new language for feedback. None of these are revolutionary on their own. But, together, they reshape culture.
From Intention to Routine
Routines are not built through willpower; they are built through repetition that eventually becomes automatic. And when we take a step back, because we will, holding ourselves compassionately accountable keeps us learning along the way.
When we hold ourselves compassionately accountable, we stay open to reflection about why and how we might do things differently in the future. We don’t shame ourselves for missing a day or struggling with consistency. We notice what happened, get curious about it, and adjust.
This is where destinations and directions become essential. Your destination is where you want to be over time—the person you’re becoming, the change you’re creating. Your directions are how you show up in the moment—the daily practices you want to integrate, the small behaviors that align with who you’re trying to become.
The small steps that you take today won’t feel like much. That is the point. When an action requires minimal decision-making energy, you’re more likely to repeat it.
It could be taking two minutes at the start of your day to check in with the Mood Meter. What matters most is choosing something small enough to try, noticing what happens, and adjusting from there.
Routines aren’t built in moments of peak motivation; they’re built in the ordinary repetition of showing up when motivation is nowhere to be found. Compassionate accountability keeps you learning along the way, reflecting on what’s working, adjusting what isn’t, without shame spiraling when you miss a day. Allowing small actions to become patterns means you’re no longer relying on emotional highs to drive the progress you desire.
Building Traction
Small changes are not a lack of ambition. They are a commitment to what lasts.
Using the Mood Meter to check in regularly creates a feedback loop for how we feel and what we choose to do next.
High performance comes from alignment, not acceleration. The most effective leaders recognize when progress means moving forward, and when it means creating stability first.
You don’t need a complete reinvention to move forward with purpose. You need traction. And traction is built one step at a time; informed by honest emotional awareness, sustained by realistic expectations, and solidified by the quiet power of repetition.
What’s one small step you can repeat tomorrow, and the day after, until it becomes simply what you do? The expression of who you want to be.