The Tiny Things Audit
A few months ago, in response to something a client shared, I invited them to do what we called a Tiny Things Audit.
It went something like this:
1) Create a list of at least 10 TINY things which bring you joy, presence or aliveness.
2) Create a list of at least 10 TINY things which cause you undue stress, anxiety or annoyance.
The adjectives don’t really matter. The game is: what are the Tiny Things that make life worth living, and what are the Tiny Things that rob you of life?
I think we should probably all do a Tiny Things Audit.
We often think the changes that make all the difference need to be big and sweeping, and yet sometimes, like the pebble that causes the avalanche, it is small things that make big differences.
Knowing which small things make all the difference for us can have profound impact.
In the middle of one of the bleakest parts of my adulthood, amongst miscarriages and deaths, and also amongst the most challenging moments of the pandemic, I came back to Tiny Things. What are the Tiny Things I can do that might make me happier?
What are the things that I genuinely love to do, no matter how small? And in fact, the smaller the better.
The midst of bleakness can teach us things - if this little thing, coffee with a book, for example, brings me joy even now, even amongst all this, then it must really matter.
And the Tiny Things… well, we can usually do them again.
I can put my attention on coffee and a book, create the space, even, to do it in the sun. Put that little bit of joy and aliveness back into the midst of the bleakness.
And the Tiny Things that drain us, too, can add up.
Several years ago, I realised that I was getting disproportionately frustrated, stressed and anxious about getting Nos in response to the invitation to my latest coaching programme. I was pouring energy out into the world and waiting for it to come back. It felt relentless, and it was wearing me out. It got to the point where even seeing an email from someone I knew and trusted, who I had asked for help, would spike my anxiety.
A Tiny Thing, an email from someone I’d asked for help. And yet affecting my whole day.
But we can play with that - we can, for example, gift ourselves one of the Tiny Things on the first list if we face down one of the things on the second. It was January, and I had been given a box of Lindor for Christmas. I made a deal with myself: I can only eat a Lindor, and I have to eat a Lindor, if I get a No to do with my programme.
The rewiring was fast - and the almost impossibly delicious chocolate brought me joy, in moments which before and pulled me down.
The insights, too, can be powerful. Looking down each list, what connects the different Tiny Things on each list? How could you group them?
Sometimes, as Fritz Perls (almost) said, awareness is curative. Simply noticing the disproportionate impact of a Tiny Thing from List 2 might be enough to take away its power.
Sometimes, as with my coffee, simply noticing what is on List 1 can make sure that you take even more joy from it. Don’t let lack of presence let something on List 1 pass you by.
Sometimes, you can just stop doing those things that drain you, as I did when I asked myself a question set by my coach every week for months.
The things that come up on lists like these tend to be incredibly beautiful and human. They’re fun to read, to share. They remind us what makes life worth living, and how we sometimes create mountains out of tiny molehills, encountering our upper limit problem about things that can simply be smiled at.
It’s not always possible for us to make our business a succcess overnight. But we can go for a walk in the sunset.
It’s not always possible to leave a job with a terrible boss when our husband and children depend on our income. But we can stop looking at LinkedIn just before bed.
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This is the latest in a series of articles written using the 12-Minute Method: write for twelve minutes, proof read once with tiny edits and then post online.
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