In @craigpetterson’s recent post, he talked about how: 

The best form of exercise is the one you actually do. If that’s just 10 press ups per day. That’s 10 more than 0. Focus on none zero days.

Non-zero days…… love that concept! 

It reminded me of how James Clear put it in his book Atomic Habits: to build a habit, start off by scaling it down to doing the smallest unit of that habit, the “atomic” part of it. The low bar makes it super un-intimidating and easy to take the first step. But I always found it hard to visualize what “scaling down to the smallest unit of a habit” looks like. How do I make something done repeatedly, smaller? In size? That doesn’t quite make sense. 

But non-zero days do just that for me. It’s so clear and simple! Just do one rep. Just break the zero. Just do at least one. And since I had already done one rep, might as well do another, and another…… Even if I don’t end up doing another rep, just showing up for that one rep to make it a non-zero day, already alleviates half the guilt and self-deprecation. 

It’s amazing how perspectives can turn around with just tiny word tweaks. Uncanny how words have such mystery and power. 

Life’s largeness moves on the tiny, invisible levers of words, spoken or unspoken. Just like how Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world,” I’ll say, 

“Choose my words well and a spot within my life from which to focus it, and I can move my world beyond imagination.”