{"id":996,"date":"2020-04-08T10:07:57","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T15:07:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/lytlecenter\/?p=996"},"modified":"2020-04-08T10:29:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-08T15:29:24","slug":"thriving-in-crisis-concentrate-on-small-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.acu.edu\/lytlecenter\/2020\/04\/08\/thriving-in-crisis-concentrate-on-small-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Thriving in Crisis: Concentrate On Small Wins"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago, I remember reading about a young man who became paralyzed from the neck down after a bike crash in a motocross race. \u00a0Apparently he went over the handlebars and landed headfirst at a significant speed. \u00a0At the time I tried to imagine what it would be like to be 19 or 20 years old, full of life, athletic and fit, and waking up in the hospital to be told that I would never walk or feed myself again? \u00a0It’s the news that nightmares are made of. \u00a0From there, however, the story took an unexpected turn. \u00a0After embarking on the little physical therapy that he and his family could afford, the young man was able to move a couple of muscles in his arm but therapists were still insistent that he would never walk again. \u00a0Little did they know that over the course of the next twenty years he would bike across the U.S. twice and walk twenty miles across the Mojave Desert. \u00a0But the question is, how?<\/p>\n

\"\"Well the main reason I remember the article is because of one key point that I found truly profound (I’ve since looked up the article<\/a> to make sure it’s quoted accurately). \u00a0Journalist John Rogers summarizes the young man’s (Aaron Baker) thinking, “The chances of walking again, he was told, were one in a million. He eventually used that as a mantra \u2014 when people say odds are a million to one, ignore the million and focus on the one \u2014 and has learned to walk again. It started with learning to do just one thing, beginning with getting just a few muscles in an arm to work, and then moving on to another task.” \u00a0Baker is a model of human determination and he is quick to attribute his success to his mother and others who loved and supported him through it. \u00a0But he also utilized a technique with a proven record of success. \u00a0Baker focused on one thing and then another and then another. \u00a0He benefited from small wins!<\/p>\n

Small Wins<\/strong><\/p>\n

Accomplishing small wins is the third principle we propose as essential for Thriving in Crisis (in case you missed it, the first week we encouraged finding a daily routine<\/a> and the second week we highlighted the importance of serving others<\/a>). \u00a0In crises there are innumerable things to be done, work projects often pile up, house chores multiply, and the system that typically helped us complete all of these things in a structured way is often disrupted. \u00a0So where do we begin? What do we start with? How do we prevent ourselves from just giving up and sitting on the couch letting the hours fade away? \u00a0One of my fears amidst this global pandemic and world shutdown is to get to the end of it and say, “what did I do with all of that time?” \u00a0One of the major solutions in this struggle is found in the power of small wins.<\/p>\n

\"\"Renowned organizational theorist, Karl E. Weick, illuminated the potential of small wins for tackling large social problems in a 1984 article in American Psychologist<\/a>. \u00a0In it, he argues that much of the reason why little progress is made toward solving social problems can be attributed to the ways in which they are defined. \u00a0Often times we think about the magnitude of our problems in ways that paralyze us from actually doing anything about them. \u00a0Weick’s paper specifically targets problems such as world hunger, traffic, and diseases, but I believe his point extends to our own personal battles as well. \u00a0Have you ever been immobilized by the thought of writing a research paper? \u00a0Where do you begin? \u00a0You sit down and you aren’t able to write anything, you can’t focus, and the thought of actually finishing this big paper is just too much! \u00a0You put it off and end up wasting your time on mindless tasks to keep from having to think about it. \u00a0Weick proposes that “small wins” is a strategy for recasting our problems in a methodical way allowing us to break them down into a less frightening series of tasks. \u00a0Viewing a problem as a set of smaller, manageable tasks, prevents us from being overaroused and limits our feelings of helplessness.<\/p>\n

Making Progress<\/strong><\/p>\n

The real energy behind small wins is what they do for us psychologically. \u00a0We have an innate desire to make progress and to accomplish meaningful things. \u00a0Theresa Amabile and Steven J. Kramer, say it this way, “Of all the things that can boost inner work life, the most important is making progress in meaningful work” (Amabile and Kramer, 2011<\/a>, p. 4). \u00a0In their HBR article they highlight daily diary studies tracking peoples’ moods at work with the goal of determining which work activities occur most on employees’ good mood days as opposed to their bad mood days. \u00a0The results were clear, making progress<\/em>, even if that means just a small stride, is far more likely to occur on good mood days as opposed to bad mood days. \u00a0And the reverse was true as well, workers were far more likely to experience setbacks and performance inhibiting experiences on bad mood days as opposed to good mood days. \u00a0And there appears to be a cyclical loop whereby accomplishing small tasks on meaningful work puts you in a good mood which then gives you the motivation to continue making progress. \u00a0Generating small wins might very well create a virtuous work cycle of productivity. \u00a0Our desire for achieving forward progress toward a goal was also found in a study by Soman and Shi (2003)<\/a> who found that when choosing flight paths to get to a particular destination, people prefer routes that take them toward the final destination sequentially than those that do not, even when the routes get you there in the same amount of time. \u00a0For example, when flying to New York City from Dallas, would you rather connect through Denver or Atlanta? \u00a0Shoman and Shi found support consistent with people choosing the Atlanta connection.<\/p>\n

Putting It Into Practice<\/strong><\/p>\n