Sometimes it’s the smallest decision that can change your life forever.

— Keri Russell

This past weekend was the 75^th anniversary of Alcoholics Anonymous, the group that helps others like themselves by “having one drunk talk to another” and by taking one day at a time.  The secret to their success is that they know that little changes come from doing something that we didn’t used to do, every day.  Over time the little changes become big changes and we’ve accomplished something that we never knew we could.   In this week’s LA Times, a recovering alcoholic told his story.

In the article, Chas relates how he really, really didn’t want to go to his first AA meeting.  He had seen AA help his father, his uncle, and his three brothers, but he had lots of reasons it wouldn’t work for him.  A friend got him to go to a meeting anyway.  He writes:

I sat and listened for an hour. I heard nothing that moved me or gave me hope. The bumper-sticker wisdom of the program was idiotic. The ardent cheerfulness of the group was repellent. The emphasis on God, or a Higher Power, was offensive.

He told the friend that had accompanied him that he was sorry that he had wasted his time.  The friend told him that it was OK and could he just try to not drink that night and they’d talk tomorrow.  And that’s how Chas got sober, staying in touch with a friend who was also a recovering alcoholic and making each decision one at a time – right now I will not drink.

I Can’t Commit to That

We often find that there are goals we’d like to achieve but that the distance between here and there is so great that we can’t make that commitment.  The energy required to even get started feels enormous and we give up before we try.

A good example of this is that when you’re feeling low, a common recommendation is that you get off your duff and get moving.  Take a walk.  Have coffee with a friend.  Get out of your usual environment.  Yet, the conundrum is that if you felt good enough to be doing those things, you wouldn’t be feeling low.  For me, what I want most is to curl up with a good book and a cat or a dog.  I want to stay on my duff!  Walking or putting on makeup and seeing people is the absolute last thing that I want to do.

In 100 Ways to Create Wealth , Steve Chandler and Sam Beckford write about this very idea.  They call it a mind shift.

But somewhere, somehow, someone must do what he doesn’t feel like doing for a true mind shift to happen.  It’s got to start somewhere.  Someone has to do something they know they don’t “have to” do.

And the minute you do that, you have a fresh start.  You’re no longer who you used to be.

In Chas’ story, he knows he needs to stop drinking.  He’s not willing to go to AA and yet he gets himself to his first meeting.  He gets himself through his first night without a drink.  He has a fresh start.  He has done a mind shift.  He hasn’t decided that he’ll never drink.  He’s decided that, today, for now, he won’t drink.  And for Chas, that is huge.

“Make each decision in its own time and have friends you can rely on to help you through the rough spots.”

1 – 2 – 3  SHIFT!

Mind shifts are funny things.  On one level they are tremendously significant.  You chose to do something that you didn’t necessarily want to do.  You may have wanted the result of doing it, but it really would have been so much easier if you could just stay the same and have the result turn up anyway.

At the same time, mind shifts are only the first step, and then, it’s up to you to recommit to taking action every day.  The more times you repeat that decision, the easier it becomes.  You’re building new pathways in your brain.  But those old ruts are still there and it’s possible that you might end up back in a rut at some point.

Mind shifts don’t require that we make big changes.  The power is in taking that first action.  Little changes come from doing something that we didn’t used to do, every day.  Over time the little changes become big changes and we’ve accomplished something that we never knew we could.

It’s Scary Out There

I wish I were the kind of person to dream big dreams and wake up each morning certain that I’ll be able to make them come true.  Unfortunately, the reality is that each morning I have to re-convince myself that I can… write another post, learn enough about investing to make money at it, get my 10,000 steps in today.  My first exercise is to find the off switch on my own personal fear-monger and find the on switch for the possibility genie.  (Why do they keep moving the switches anyway?)

But I know I can’t do it alone.  When working on investing, I call my friend Terri and she talks me down from the “I can’t believe I did that” syndrome.  Ellie and I regularly “consult” via phone about how in the heck we’re going to create a new product or address a particular issue.  When I hit my 10,000 steps, I call someone and brag.  None of us do it all alone.

So, after 75 years, it’s possible that AA has something for all of us – Make each decision in its own time and have friends you can rely on to help you through the rough spots.  Or, as  Robert Fulghum said in All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten , “When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.”