“All I have to do is just take one little step at a time, and I can do anything!”—‘Bob Wiley’ in What About Bob?
New term and I get to teach one of my favorite courses—“Exercise Motivation & Adherence”. Day one and I have already used the phrases: motivational interviewing, self-efficacy, and, of course, opportunity costs. I think teaching the course helps keep my own motivational challenges in perspective.
I have the quite nonacademic practice of showing the movie, What About Bob?, in this class. I love how characters depicted by Richard Dreyfus (Dr. Leo Marvin) and Bill Murray (Bob Wiley) can so effectively demonstrate the core concepts we will be learning. Dr. Marvin’s Baby Steps, after all, is really just the application of the concept of shaping and Skinner’s Learning Theory.
Success begets success. Small regular successes have an accumulative effect. If one wants to change behavior, one must start small and start today. “One little step at a time”!
What are your trying to change? The “well-centered fitness” approach to Spiritual, Physical, Intellectual, Emotional, and Social growth is incremental. One kind word at a time. I repetition at a time. One page at a time. One positive thought at a time. One positive interaction at a time. We strive to be our best today—a little better than we were yesterday—and we are better tomorrow.
I love the concept of baby steps. If the goal seems too big, break it down. Daily successes lead to long-term great success. Adding 5 lbs a week (about the smallest possible increment) to one’s squat results in a 260 lb gain in strength! Walking an extra 0.5 mile a day results in an approximate 18,250 kcal expenditure resulting in a possible loss of 5.21 lbs. Cutting one sugared pop/soda a week is equivalent to burning 8,320 kcal or 2.4 lbs. Reading less than 4 pages a day is all one needs to do to finish Tolstoy’s War & Peace in a year. So, what is holding you back? Break it down and take baby steps.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow!
Carpe momento!