When we have a goal in life – whether it’s writing a book, moving house, starting a new business, changing careers, or getting married – these types of projects can be overwhelming. The fight / flight part of our brain (the amygdala) can start to fire very quickly if a project feels too big and insurmountable and we can start to feel anxious.
According to Professor Steve Peters, author of the mental management book The Chimp Paradox, this survival part of your brain is your “chimpanzee.”
Your chimpanzee is like a child who screams and tells you everything that can go wrong. This part needs to be resolved, otherwise it will be a constant distraction and sabotage your attempts to move forward and advance your project.
So what do we do to settle this primitive part of our brain? One way is to work in what we call increments. Incremental work means having a goal and breaking it down into smaller activities that are easier to accomplish than the goal as a whole. For example, writing a book can be divided into:
1. Idea creation
2. Research and content creation
3. Summing up the book
4. Writing the book
5. Editing and revision
6. Amendments
7. Publication
What may seem like a big project at first (writing the book) turns into seven smaller phases, each of which can be broken down into steps and scheduled in your journal or calendar. Working in this way means that you are driving change through incremental steps. This, in turn, means that you have the tools to ensure that you are put under just the right amount of pressure to get the job done without feeling overwhelmed. However, there are a few tricks to keep in mind.
Moment
The trick is to find a balance between impatience (wanting to achieve your ambition too quickly) and procrastination (putting off the inevitable). When a project is too big, you run the risk of having a hard time understanding it, and as a result, you may end up procrastinating or even scrapping it altogether.
Herein lies the beginning of procrastination due to your brain being in an overwhelming state. If there is a time limit for your project, the longer you leave the project, the less time you will have to complete it to a high enough level. You also have less time to overcome the inevitable setbacks along the way.
Dividing your project into steps that you can handle on a day-to-day basis and progressing through those steps incrementally and systematically begins to help you find that balance. When you know how long each step will take, you know how long your entire project will take. This is very liberating and allows you to plan your life more effectively.
Plus, starting the process as early as possible puts time on your side. The longer it takes to start your project, the greater the activity blocks you will need to complete it. The larger these blocks, the less control of your project you will feel.
Fragmenting
Another trick, therefore, is to strike a balance between making your steps too big and too small. The longer your time frame, the more creative you can be with the steps you design. Your steps should be big enough to keep you motivated, but small enough that you feel as confident as possible that you will complete the entire project on time. You can transfer the steps to paper in the form of a plan, or keep them in your head, depending on whether or not you are a visual person who needs to see things in written form or in diagram form.
Working in this way gives you a tremendous sense of control, freedom, and the feeling of having the wealth of time on your side. This approach to life and project management is referred to in neurolinguistic programming (NLP) as “fragmentation.” NLP covers the effect on the brain of how we use our language and physiology. Everything can be ‘chunked’, creating bigger steps to allow you to be more strategic, or ‘chunked’ to make it easier to manage the details.
The process of incremental change
So the key to incremental change is:
1. Identify what you want to achieve (be clear on your end goal)
2. Divide the goal into parts (phases)
3. Divide the phases into smaller and smaller steps until you can begin
4. Schedule the steps in your journal or on your calendar.
5. Implement the steps until you reach your goal.
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