Little Goals Big Results: The Art of Small

Chimpanzee

Most people want big things now. They want seismic shifts, they want huge results, they want giant change. Not me. I like small.

I collect small journals to pen small thoughts. I put small found objects on gifts to turn them into beloved treasures. Everything I do is small. I believe in the small idea, the small bite, the small thought, the small step,. The only way I've accomplished anything was to take small steps.

Many people want it all now. Not me. I want a slow drip so I can acclimate. I need time to adjust to any changes. I'd probably drop dead if I won the lottery. If I were suddenly super sleek and thin I wouldn't know who I was. I wouldn't recognize myself. Who is that person in the mirror with all those bones sticking out?

I don't have a list of 100 things I want to do before I die. I have 20. A small manageable list. I'd be so stressed out if I tried to squeeze in 80 more before I reached 80. I don't want to imagine hiking to the top of Kilimanjaro. There's no air up there. It's freezing cold. People die or their limbs get gangrene and fall off. They sleep hanging in the air over a huge cavern of nothingness far far below. When they finally reach the top they are almost too weak to stake in a flag or to do whatever they need to do to signify that they were there. I don't need to beckon death to feel alive.

It's not that I'm not a doer. I've had my brushes with death from daring. I did paddle down the Zambezi river in class 5 rapids and almost got sucked down a black hole. I survived in Paris for almost two years although I porked out something fierce from all that camembert and clafoutis, and I did almost die after being exposed to such extreme snobbery.

It's not that I don't go wild in my head. I do fantasize about living with chimps in Tanzania like Jane Goodall, but I'm afraid one will attack me and rip my face off while I sleep. I want to go to Istanbul, but I fear that I'll be abducted and sold into slavery - not as a prostitute given my body and age, but as a slave who was forced to clean the opium hookah and scrape the crud off the shoes of the master of the house.

Call me a simpleton. For me, it's enough to rub the fuzz on the tummies of my kitties every morning, nuzzle my hot man, and make a cup of steaming green tea to enjoy while watching the birds outside my kitchen window tiff over who is going to get the most Niger seed on the finch sock. One of my most favorite things to do is to curl up on the bed with my sweetie, the kitties, and a good book reading about those crazy coots who are climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

Susan Harrow is the author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul. She runs a Media Consultancy where she helps everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to celebrity chefs, entrepreneurs to authors grow their business through media coaching and the power of PR. For more information please contact Susan.