Power of Small Changes in Improving Our Lives

Most of us think that to improve our lives, we must make drastic changes. But most of the time, it’s the small and consistent changes that made the biggest difference.

Small changes repeated every day will become small habits. Small habits are the little things you do every day that make you the person you want to be. It’s small so it can be done easily within 30 seconds. And when repeated every day, it becomes autopilot. An example of a small habit is brushing your teeth in the morning once you got out of bed.

How I Use Small Changes to Quit Drinking

I was a heavy drinker. I enjoyed the taste of cold beers. I could drink up to eight beers per day almost every day. For years, I knew that drinking was poisoning my body and mind, but I couldn’t stop. The biggest reason was that I thought that I was powerless and that I needed to make big changes to quit.

In April 2017, after having read so much about how people quit drinking, I decided to make small and consistent changes in my daily life to slowly quit drinking. I’m happy to tell you that I’m finally sober in 2017 until now after all those years of drinking.

The followings are the small changes I made:                         

1. Set Limits

Instead of drinking every day, I started to drink only 5 days per week then I changed to drinking on an alternate day.

2. Reduce the Amount

After successfully drinking only on alternate days, I slowly reduced the number of bottles of beer per day.                                                                                                                        

3. Manage My “trigger”

I realized that most of the time I drink because I was bored so I slowly picked up new hobbies like drawing and painting. These new hobbies not only help me in quitting drinking but also improves my well-being.

4. Replace Beer with Cold Sparkling Water

I started to replace beers with cold sparkling water. It’s a good replacement for beer because it’s not only cold and carbonated as in beer but also contains zero calories. Nowadays when I am in restaurants or pubs, I order sparkling water instead of beers.

Final Recap

The key to making big changes is to make small changes first. Here are another two great things in our lives which are the result of small changes repeated consistently:

1. Get Active
   • Start by walking a few steps
   • Slowly increase the number of steps walked every day
   • Finally, Incorporate a daily workout
2. Write a book
   • Start by sitting down and writing a small number of words
   • Slowly increase the number of words written every day
   • Then finally, increase the number of pages written