My Elephant

Perhaps you can relate to this:

Scenario 1: You decide you want to make some changes in your life. You get a “This-Is-So-Exciting-I’m-Going-To-Be-So-Awesome” high and think about thing after thing that you are going to do differently. You dive in with enthusiasm. You immediately begin conquering it all and within two weeks, your enthusiasm fizzles and you’re back at square one.

Or maybe this one…

Scenario 2: You realize you need to make changes in your life STAT. You start seeing all the negative aspects of your lifestyle and conviction settles in. This list begins to mount. Your head starts to hurt. You suddenly feel overwhelmed and have no idea where to start because there are just too many changes to make. And so, your brain implodes and you return to your regularly scheduled program.
 

Sound familiar? I experience both situations quite frequently - especially when it comes to implementing a simpler, more natural lifestyle. I often have such wonderful aspirations that never come to fruition because I fall into one of the above scenarios.

Sometimes it feels like too much effort. Sometimes I feel like we’re financially not prepared. Sometimes it feels too difficult to learn. I’m pretty good at not coming up with excuses.

Then I ran across a concept on a blog. Its a little movement called One Small Change. The idea is pretty simple: Commit to making one environmentally friendly change each month. For that month you focus on whatever you picked. It can be a big change or a little change – just commit to making a change.

I immediately had a light bulb moment. I realized I needed to stop trying to figure out how I could do it all.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

I needed to pick one or two changes at a time, master those and then move onto the next. The concept of One Small Change turned my elephant of a list into a challenge I could tackle one bite at a time.

Here’s how I’m eating my elephant:

Brainstorm

Grab a pen and some paper. Spend 5 or 10 minutes writing down the things you want to change. This gets those ideas out of your head and helps ease that feeling of having too much stuff rattling around in there.

Prioritize

Now we need to narrow things down. Look over your list and think about your priorities at this time in your life. Circle three items that fit your priorities and are most important to you. It can be difficult to decide, but force yourself to narrow it down. It doesn’t mean you aren’t going to accomplish the other items on your list. You’re just going to focus on these three first.

Select

Of those three things, pick one and only one. You may be like me and are tempted to think “Well, I can handle these three no problem.” Remember Scenario 1? Resist the temptation. Let’s focus on mastering just one right now.

Take Action!

Now that you have picked which change you are going to make, start taking the steps to make it happen. Give yourself at least two weeks before taking on another challenge; a month might even be better. It can be hard not to jump to the next thing, but make sure this one sticks.

Keep your list handy so that whenever you have another idea, you write it down and have it waiting in queue when it comes time to pick the next change to tackle.

My current change? Learning to recycle. What's yours?