20
Coaching World
The owner of Transforming
Challenge into Opportunity,
PLLC, Andrea has 18 years
of experience in Leadership,
Health and Career Coaching.
She is an instructor of coaching,
mentors new and experienced
coaches, and designs coach
training courses. In 2002, Andrea
was an early member of the
Health Coaching team at Duke
Integrative Medicine where
she has been instructing and
mentoring in Duke’s Integrative
Health Coach Professional
Training Program since its
inception. Andrea started her
career doing psychotherapy;
however, since 1998, she has
spent the majority of her time
running a successful coaching
business, training coaches and
writing. She works internationally
with individual and corporate
clients, offers group coaching
and seminars, and does public
speaking. She can be reached at
andrea@andreashawcoaching.
com, +1.919.933.2311 or
andreashawcoaching.com.
Shutterstock.com/ rangizzz
Andrea Shaw,
Ph.D., MCC
In Defense of
Small Steps
When it comes to accomplishing
a goal, small steps don’t always
get the love. We live in an era of
supersizing and multitasking, and
the conventional notion is that
little actions aren’t as important:
Bigger is better.
Why is there prejudice against taking small
steps? What is wrong with starting small?
Every accomplishment is filled with an
endless count of small steps. In our world,
there are no grand actions that don’t rest
on a long chain of small, incremental,
cumulative actions.
You cannot divorce big results from the
small steps it takes to make progress.
There are certainly great challenges to
take on and large tasks to accomplish,
but these ultimate triumphs don’t happen
in a moment or a vacuum: They rest
completely on a series of victories along
the way. Buddhist monk and 1967 Nobel
Peace Prize nominee Thích Nhất Hạnh
wrote, “If you are a poet, you will see
clearly that there is a cloud floating in this
sheet of paper. Without a cloud, there will
be no rain; without rain, the trees cannot
grow; and without trees, we cannot make
paper. The cloud is essential for the paper
to exist.” Hanh coined the term “inter-are,”
meaning that nothing exists in isolation.
Making something happen never exists
alone either; it’s dependent on all the
many prior steps. Just as the cloud and the
paper inter-are, so are all of our actions,
big and small.
Designing Smaller Actions
The need is not for motivation; rather,
it’s just to start small. For a client who is
feeling stuck, a small, initial step can build
a bridge toward accomplishing something
new or challenging. The first action doesn’t
need to be impressive—in fact, it might be
hardly noticeable. It just needs to lubricate
energy and willingness to start in order to
enable your client to continue doing what
she wants—or needs— to do.
Imagine that your client is facing the
common challenge of losing weight. She
doesn’t feel like it. It seems daunting. If
her goal is to start shedding pounds, you
can brainstorm together and identify