We see this played out with New Year’s resolutions, when so many people attempt to overachieve. As mentioned, the way to successfully fulfill our resolutions, whether physical or spiritual, is to set “mini goals.” Perhaps the best approach is to choose something so small that you hardly consider it a goal.
A teacher of mine had sage advice. “Pick something small, but I’m talking really small. Take a resolution you are thinking about and cut it in half. Then take that half and cut it into an eighth. Only work on that new, smaller resolution.”
To illustrate, I had a student who was deeply inspired by the concept of making berachot before eating. At the time, she rarely did so and couldn’t fathom how it would be possible for her to remember to say a blessing every time she ate.
After I shared my teacher’s advice with her, she decided to make a berachah only on one flavor of yogurt: strawberry. As you can imagine, initially she wasn’t saying berachot very often. But it was such a miniscule goal that she was able to stick to it. Slowly but surely she added to this “mini” resolution until she reached her ultimate goal of reciting a blessing over all foods.
When we take small mitzvot upon ourselves it almost goes unnoticed, even to us. Yet we are not alone in being oblivious to the growth: the yetzer hara also has trouble detecting such small steps.
Israeli pilots on their way to rescue hostages in Entebbe in 1976 and to destroy Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981 flew relatively close to the ground in order to escape detection by enemy radar. Similarly, with baby steps we can fly, undetected, below the yetzer hara’s radar system.
When we try to take too much upon ourselves the yetzer hara intervenes, and we can end up crashing. But the small choices we make tend to go unnoticed, both by ourselves and by the yetzer hara. Only when we look back do we realize how far we’ve flown.
Moving in small steps is the key to big spiritual and physical success.