Recently, while on our annual winter family vacation, I woke up early one morning and began to write in my journal. I found myself writing about what went wrong in 2010 and what I could have done differently. Then I proceeded to write out these major New Year’s Resolutions for 2011.  All of the sudden, I literally jumped up looked in the mirror and said to myself, “What the hell are you doing?” I had that reaction because I realized that I was going about the reflection and change process all wrong. I was not following the Kaizen philosophy that I had developed and had contributed to so much success in my life and the lives of the people that I taught it to.

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You see, one of the core principles of the Kaizen philosophy is Continuous Improvement. This is the process whereby you try and improve a little every day…not by doing more, but by doing less. You make small changes that lead to major breakthroughs.  Before you beat yourself up thinking about what went wrong or could have been better in 2010, first you should focus on what did work and what went right in 2010.  What were the thoughts and behaviors that really worked for you this past year?  Keep thinking and doing those things.  Secondly, really identify the wasteful thoughts and behaviors that were counterproductive to helping you achieve the things you wanted to in 2010 or that held you back…and simply stop doing and thinking those things. What you ultimately end up with is doing more of what works for you and less of what does not. Therefore, you can accomplish significantly more by actually doing less.

To Your Story!

Ja Marr