Hi, all! Today I have Lynn Johnston here talking about how she became a self-help blogger. Stick around! There’s a giveaway later, too!
How I Accidentally Became a Self-Help Blogger
by Lynn Johnston
I didn’t set out to write a self-help blog—I’m a novelist at heart. But when my father died in a plane crash two years ago, I suddenly found myself unable to write fiction. Getting into my characters’ heads required imagining what they were feeling…
…and I couldn’t imagine feeling anything but grief.
The rest of my life came to a standstill as well. I couldn’t concentrate for more than a few minutes at a time. I couldn’t muster the motivation to do anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary. Even the simplest tasks became overwhelming.
I was slowly drowning in my own life.
A total stranger threw me a rope. The stranger’s name is Robert Maurer, and the rope was his book, One Small Step Can Change Your Life.
Maurer’s book is about kaizen—the philosophy of improvement through small, incremental changes. He describes how big problems and big goals often trigger fear, anxiety and insecurity. Small problems and small goals, on the other hand, bypass the fight-or-flight response.
Best of all, Maurer offers a number of questions to help you start thinking small and to identify the easiest but still-effective action you can take to get closer to solving your problem or achieving your goal.
It sounded too good to be true. But I decided to try it anyway. And to hold myself accountable, I started blogging about my efforts.
My wish list was full of big goals, goals I didn’t really believe I could accomplish. I wanted to declutter and reorganize my house. I wanted to eat healthier and start an exercise program. I wanted to get my writing groove back.
Breaking these down into small goals was painful. If I couldn’t manage to achieve these things with the big efforts I’d made in the past, how could I possibly achieve them with smaller steps? Setting the bar so low felt like giving up.
But I was desperate. Dad’s death left me feeling depressed and purposeless. I wasn’t making any progress at that point, so even a tiny step in the right direction would be an improvement.
I started making small changes to my routine. One change per week, and each change had to be easy enough that I could complete it in less than fifteen minutes.
- I set aside three minutes in the morning to do a deep breathing exercise. My energy levels went up almost immediately.
- I added a ten-minute stretching routine in the evening, and noticed that the little aches and pains of the day disappeared.
- I set aside fifteen minutes after lunch to read for self-improvement, choosing books about willpower, procrastination, and getting organized. For the first time in my life, I found myself actually using the information in my self-help books.
- One week, I did a clutter survey and discovered that I could do without the majority of my possessions. Another week, I spent a few minutes contemplating the emotional foundations of clutter.
- I earmarked ten minutes for decluttering each day, and in a couple of weeks, my house was noticeably neater.
- As my house got cleaner, the disarray in my office bothered me more—so I reorganized it, writing The Kaizen Plan for Organized Authors in short sections as I cleaned.
- I looked for easy ways to eat healthier—and shared what I learned in The Kaizen Plan for Healthy Eating.
As I made these (and many other) small changes, I got my life back—better than it was before. My house is ninety percent of the way to being decluttered, my health is better than it’s ever been, and for the first time in my life, I’ve got confidence in my ability to reach the goals I’ve set for myself.
Thank you, Mr. Maurer, for giving me the tools to keep moving forward when life seemed too overwhelming to handle.
I can’t wait to see where kaizen will take me next.
Leave a comment below and be entered to win a free copy of The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, volume 1.
The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, Volune 1
Take control of your life ten minutes at a time–that’s the philosophy of Small Steps to Big Change, Lynn Johnston’s blog about the power of kaizen to change your life.
This anthology will teach you:
- How Your Living Room Can Give You More Willpower
- The Emotional Foundations of Clutter
- Five Steps for Cultivating Self-Discipline
- Three Goal-Setting Mistakes You’re Probably Making
- How Horseshoe Nails Are Ruining Your Life
- The Magic Question That Keeps You Moving Toward Your Goals
- Three Goal-Setting Mistakes You’re Probably Making
- How to Ease Into a New Diet or Fitness Routine Without Disrupting Your Life
- Tips for Clearing Mental Clutter
…and much more!
About the Author:
Lynn Johnston blogs about how to take control of your life 10 minutes at a time using the kaizen approach: http://www.smallstepstobigchange.com.
Each week, readers of her blog receive a small, simple step they can use to improve some area of their lives. Her latest book, The Best of Small Steps to Big Change, vol. 1, is a collection of posts from her blog.
She’s also the author of:
- The Kaizen Plan for Healthy Eating
- The Kaizen Plan for Reducing Holiday Stress
- The Kaizen Plan for Decluttering Your To-Do List
- The Kaizen Plan for Decluttering Your Computer
- The Kaizen Plan for Organized Authors
Lynn lives in central Texas with her husband. Her hobbies including reading, writing speculative fiction, and encouraging the anoles in her backyard vegetable garden to eat more bugs.
Connect with Lynn
Thanks for having me here today, Michelle! 🙂
What a great post, Lynn. Thank you for sharing. I am sorry for your loss but kudos to getting it back together and then sharing it with the rest of us.
Jennifer, isn’t it funny how sometimes the worst periods of your life hold the greatest gifts? 🙂
What a great post! My writing too is severely impacted by my mental/emotional state. (there was a time in my life when I decided to go from writing romance to horro-nothing Freudian about that right?). I agree that attainable goal-setting is the key and a de-clutter of my house certainly wouldn’t hurt!
Why no, Autumn, nothing Freudian there at all. 😉 But adapting = surviving, right? And I bet the horror was very therapeutic. (Decluttering can be therapeutic, too…)
Your posts are always on my “read this now” list. Thank you.
Thanks for stopping by, Vicky! 😀
It is good timing for me to read your posting this morning. Have just made it through an unexpected month long hospitalization of a child and through it I have tried to look for a gift in each grueling day. Looking for the gift in each day is a practice that has been so meaningful that I will continue – the practice got “built in” out of desperation, for emotional survival in a crisis, but the practice in itself has become a gift I can give myself.
Margaret, I’m so sorry to hear about your child’s hospitalization. I wish you and your family love and healing.
Even on the days where we’re unable to recognize the gift of a terrible experience, we still receive it. Sometimes it can take months or years after before the strength we developed during the hard times becomes apparent.
So when you started to de-clutter, did you have anyone else in you household to consider? Hubby likes to keep everything. He has clothes from his Navy days. Did you include family members?
Hi, Mary! I started with my own clutter: my books, my clothes, my knicknacks and personal items. Then I moved on to clutter that was technically joint, but that my husband didn’t have an emotional attachment to, like old papers, duplicate kitchenware, etc.
I did a bit of rearranging to make joint areas look nicer, and I made sure that areas that were “mine” (like the top of my dresser or my clothes closet) were totally dejunked and ruthlessly donated everything that I don’t use at least 2-3 times each month. If I found something of my husband’s that needed to be moved out of an area I was cleaning, I put it in a box of stuff for him to go through later. (Not emotionally important stuff, but things that he hadn’t gotten around to dealing with, like papers from a conference for work.) That way, if he ever asked me what happened to X, I could dig it out of the box for him.
I also reorganized our storage spaces in small steps, making sure that things we used all the time were handy (premium storage) and things we seldom used were boxed up in the less-often accessed spots (secondary storage).
This means some things got put in out-of-reach cabinets or in the back of closets, and other stuff got put in the garage. I made a point to clearly label everything–I wrote each item that I put into the box on a piece of paper, and when the box was full, I taped the paper to the box. This reduced my anxiety (and my husband’s anxiety) that we were going to lose something important.
My husband got inspired by the decluttering I was doing: when he saw how great my clothes closet looked, he asked me, “Would you do that for my closet too?”
“Sure,” I said, “but to make my closet look like this, I had to go through my clothes and donate the old stuff to Goodwill. Otherwise I would have had too much stuff to fit it all in neatly.”
And that got him to give away some things he hadn’t been wearing.
I don’t donate anything that’s “ours” without asking him first, but he likes the way our house is shaping up enough that he’s fine with me packing things up in boxes in the garage, as long as they’re labeled. And he has started to look at his own things more critically and donate them without my prodding. We have yet to go out and buy a replacement for anything we’ve donated, and I doubt we will.
It’s pretty hard to make someone let go of an object they’re emotionally invested in, but one way to help a person to think differently about their stuff is to show them by example that letting go of things and doing some prioritizing of your possessions doesn’t have to be painful–in fact, if you’re letting go of the right things, it can feel pretty darn good.
I LOVE Lynn’s blog, even pass it around the office from time to time. I gain great tidbits of wisdom to help with my goals and their achievement. But the thing I love best about Lynn’s blog is how she relates her own insights to the process. The emotion behind so many of the things we do are what keeps us failing or causes us to struggle against what we know is best for us. I especially love the Organized Writer book. Thanks for putting together your best–guess I can declutter and delete all those blog posts I’ve been saving.
Thank you for your kind words, Vickie! I’m so glad you find the blog helpful and that you’ve enjoyed the Organized Author book. 🙂
Hi Michelle & Lynn,
Thanks for hosting this interview with Lynn today, Michelle. The journey of a thousand miles starts with that first step, right Lynn?
I can identify with your comment about being overwhelmed, and thinking that small goals won’t ever add up, that doing small things equals failure.
But, it’s magic the way those small steps build on each other. Significantly. Somehow, that small effort of energy we put out into the universe changes things and we’re all the better for it.
Great post!
Paula Millhouse
Hi, Paula! Yes, that’s such a great saying, and so true. One of my other favorites uses the metaphor of a driving at night–you can only see a little bit of the road ahead with your headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way.
And you’re right, each small step seems insignificant at the time, but they add up fast.
OMG this is exactly what I need. I was just telling my boyfriend I’m sick of being so unorganized. My daughter moves out this weekend so I Plan on getting rid of the clutter. I’ll be the only one living in my house but 3 people have boxes of crap stored there. I told everyone they’ll have to remove it.
I work a lot of hours plus write. I’m so tired of feeling so disorganized.
Thanks Lynn
Bonnie, congrats on getting your house back! 🙂
One technique that’s helped me is to have a couple of boxes ready right from the start: one for donations and one for stuff that I’m not sure about donating but that I seldom use.
Another technique that’s worked for me is to pick a corner of a room and set the timer for 15 min. Then I work my way around the edges of the room in timed bursts. You can only do two cleaning bursts a day and in a week you’ll have made a decent dent in the clutter. And you haven’t eaten up all your writing time and energy doing it.
This is so true Lynn. Thanks for sharing your experience. I find that decluttering is huge! If things are sitting around it just seems to cause interference with my thinking. I can’t focus when I am looking around piles of “stuff”!
Hey, Kayle! 🙂
I also find the clutter distracting. For a long time, it seemed like I could only write at the library or Starbucks. Then I cleaned up my office. LOL!
This post is not only inspiring but timely. I appreciated how you broke down your own method of bringing yourself out of a dark time. When my father passed away years old, I was devasted and had the same response that you went through. Thank you for this post.
PS: I picked up The Kaizan Plan for Organized Writers 🙂
Elizabeth, I’m sorry to hear of your father’s passing, and am glad that you found your own way out of that dark time.
And thank you for buying the Organized Authors book–I hope you find it helpful! 🙂
Your books always always Challange me. I hope you pick me as your winner or at least let me write a review and consider doing a guest apperince at my word press blog
Thanks for stopping by! 🙂 Please feel free to contact me by email (kaizenlynn AT gmail DOT com) if you’d like to talk about a possible guest blog/review.
I do believe small st5eps work best, after all how do you eat an elephant? One bite. .
Exactly, Ane! 😀
Don’t know if I’m too late for the contest, but I wanted to thank you for sharing the heartache that started your journey. I like the way you’ve organized the different small steps to fit certain areas of your life—like decluttering, writing, etc. Because not breaking it into small steps without a purpose to a particular area of your life seems overwhelming. There are so many areas of life that need help in getting it together that I sometimes despair. But your breaking it apart to suit particular areas helps me to focus. Thanks for all the work you’ve done to help others overcome our own obstacles.
Thanks for stopping by, Julie! I used to feel overwhelmed a lot too, and part of my problem was that I had no focus. I would try to tackle everything at once and of course I would fail, and then I’d feel even more overwhelmed.
I find that the small steps are synergistic…a few minutes of cluttering every day makes my bedroom look better, which makes me feel a little more in control, which makes it easier to go for a ten minute walk…etc. If you just pick one little thing and do it every day, you’ll get a little bit of breathing space. And then you can use the breathing space to try a second little thing. 🙂
The winner of the drawing is….(drum roll)…Elizabeth Gibson!
Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hi this week. 🙂 It’s been a pleasure meeting you all!
Regards,
Lynn Johnston
smallstepstobigchange.com
Lynn,
Thank you so much for sharing that journey. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed by big projects and that just saps the strength and willpower right out of a person. It’s hard to remember to make it manageable, but the way you’ve laid it out and making it a habit sounds so great, I’m going to start today. Thank you!
I hope you find this small steps approach helps, Samantha! I sometimes combine the small steps with bigger steps–I work on everything that comes easily in big chunks of time and then when I start to get stuck, I’ll turn to the small steps to break through the plateau and tackle the intimidating parts of the project. 🙂