Small Changes, Big Impact

Unique Perspectives: Small Changes, Big Impact

By Kim Stevens

The idea of small changes is nothing new. But the idea of small changes that unlock enormous directional shifts in your life was something I discovered about 14 years ago, and it has changed my way of thinking ever since. I had joined a spiritual group because I was feeling stuck between work and home, and needed a third place to go, somewhere to meet new faces and challenge myself with new perspectives. When I got there, a member of the group said to me: “Kim, you’re moving in a different direction now, and that’s when magic happens.”

At first I wasn’t sure. I’d always believed big results require these big, sweeping changes, not something so tiny as joining a community group. But as it turns out – and as I learned through my experiences in the years since – she was absolutely right.

Joseph Campbell would say, follow your bliss and the universe will open new doors for you where there were only walls, but it’s one thing to understand the concept of small changes and quite another to experience those little changes working their magic on your life.

I can explain this best if we zoom out and travel to about 36,000 feet above the ground. Imagine you’re on a plane flying from New York to Los Angeles, and instead of the regular route, your pilot decides to make small directional changes along the way. Chances are, you’re not making it to California, but you might get to Mexico instead … all because of these slight changes in direction that compounded over time to take you somewhere entirely unexpected and new.

For my life, at a time when I needed to travel somewhere other than the course I was on, small changes opened up these possibilities that felt singularly and exclusively available to me. A change in direction, a change of mind, a change in energy – I learned that small, incremental changes in any one of those things add up to massive transformation. And sure, I might have boarded a metaphorical plane to L.A., but when I arrived on that sunny Mexican beach, palm trees swaying to the rhythm of a salty ocean breeze, I realized I was exactly where I needed to be.