Book SummaryOne Small Step Can Change Your Life, by Robert Maurer

1-Page Summary1-Page Book Summary of One Small Step Can Change Your Life

Are you eager to make a change in your life but can't seem to make progress due to fear or uncertainty? According to clinical psychologist Robert Maurer, one small, achievable action is all it takes to overcome these obstacles and make change happen.

In One Small Step Can Change Your Life, Maurer unravels why it's often difficult to make the changes you want: Change triggers your fight-or-flight response. He also presents simple and effective strategies that will empower you to move forward and achieve your goals.

Robert Maurer is the Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Family Practice Residency Program in Spokane, Washington, and a faculty member of the...

One Small Step Can Change Your Life Summary Part 1: Why Small Actions Are Key to Big Life Changes

To understand why small actions are key to implementing change, we’ll first explain how your fight-or-flight response makes change difficult. Then, we’ll clarify how taking small actions helps you sidestep this instinctive response and progress steadily toward your goals.

Change Triggers Your Fight-or-Flight Response

According to Maurer, change is often difficult to implement because it triggers your fight-or-flight response, a vestige of evolution. To ensure survival, your ancestors had to constantly stay alert to danger so that they could react swiftly to threats in their environment. Hundreds of years later, though the environment is now less threatening, your instinct to avoid danger hasn’t evolved. However, instead of protecting you from threats to your survival, this instinct now sets off alarm bells whenever you attempt to depart from your habitual, safe routine. In other words, your brain perceives any change, from major life changes to minor habit adjustments, as a threat.

(Shortform note: Nicole LePera (How to Do the Work) adds insight into why change feels threatening by explaining two key points...

One Small Step Can Change Your Life Summary Part 2: How to Take Small Actions to Change Your Life

Now that we’ve covered why small actions are key to implementing change, let’s explore how to apply them to your goals. Maurer recommends six strategies: Question what to do next, visualize your success, act incrementally, resolve minor issues, reward your efforts, and notice subtle details. Let’s look at what each of these strategies entails.

Strategy #1: Question What to Do Next

Regularly ask yourself non-threatening questions that lead to solutions. According to Maurer, questions catalyze change by engaging the problem-solving regions of your brain. When you pose a question, your brain takes it as a cue to seek out answers, which shifts your attention away from reasons not to change and toward potential ways you can make change happen. (Shortform note: The problem-solving process Maurer describes aligns with what's widely known as instinctive elaboration. Simply put, asking a question creates a gap in your understanding. In response, your brain feels compelled...

Shortform Exercise: Define Your First Small Step

Maurer argues that small, incremental actions are key to implementing change. This exercise will help you choose your first steps.

Reflect on the changes you want to make in your life and pick one. Write down the challenge, then list at least one non-threatening question that might reveal insights on how to move forward. (For example, if you want to change your career, you might ask yourself: “What one skill do I enjoy using in my current job that I could explore further?”)