After my blog post last week on improving by 1%, I spent the week thinking about fear and procrastination. Sometimes, even 1% can feel massive. I am personally guilty of thinking ‘oh I won’t bother with the 1% thing, it’s too small – instead next week I will do the 10% thing’. So – I won’t bother cycling today, I’ll do a proper workout tomorrow. I won’t bother counting my calories today, I’ll fast tomorrow.

In the words of the pantomime audience – oh no you won’t!

Especially if you are feeling overwhelmed, trying to make big changes feels, well, overwhelming. I can also be suspicious of the 1% idea, since it suggests that more will always need to be done. And like my small, vegetable-refusing daughter, I know damn well that it isn’t going to end with one green bean on the plate.

So today I wanted to list out some single actions which you can take. Just do one thing – then celebrate. Since FIRE for me is about living more intentionally, these aren’t just about finance but also about wellbeing.

I think of these as minimum viable actions: there is enough of a reason to do them, but not enough hassle or energy / resources required to refuse. Don’t worry about the next one, or the scale up version. Maybe it will lead to a rich new habit, or maybe you will have just done one thing. Either way, I call that a win.

Health

1. Breathe. Yeah yeah, if you didn’t do this one thing you wouldn’t be doing much of anything else. But actually breathing is the core to so many wellbeing approaches, including mindfulness and meditation. I always intend to do more of both but never quite find the time. Instead, just take one minute to focus on your breath. Spend that minute counting your breaths, with your hands on your abdomen, and noticing the breath coming in and out. There is a specific one-minute breathing approach in some yogic traditions and lots more to read on this one. But for me, it’s a reboot which I do after I’ve had a stressful meeting, or between work and dealing with the kids, or before driving.
2. Have a glass of water. Drinking water has so many benefits. It can improve your mood, energy levels and clarity of thinking. Lots of times people think they are hungry they are actually thirsty, so it can also help you eat mindfully as and when you need to. Being dehydrated can make you feel sluggish, and lead to headaches, difficulty sleeping, and dry skin. Sometimes the messaging – drink 8 glasses a day! Or more! – can feel overwhelming. So just go and drink one, maybe even right now. Job done!
3. Say no to something you don’t really want anyway. I am a sucker for grand statements. ‘I will never eat any more sweet treats in the office’. ‘I will never eat bread again’. Hm. I think we know how this one ends. Plus I use these mythical aspirations as an excuse to not ‘just do one thing’ – in this case, saying no. Try it: on cookies in the office; bread brought to the table in a restaurant; your mother’s insistence on another helping; the third beer. It doesn’t have to be the start of a regime (though it might be…) but breaking the habit of just saying yes is part of more intentionally choosing your desired response to every single decision you make.

Finance

1. Notice if you are thinking toxic money thoughts. This might sound a bit ‘woo’ but it is genuinely hard to make changes if you are always undermining yourself. Talking all over yourself in a Sarcastic Bystander Voice whilst trying to plan or make good decisions will always mean that you lose. So for your one thing, just call it out once. If you hear the internal monologue crank up with the ‘I’ll always be broke’ – ‘it’s so much easier for them’ – ‘as a single parent, I have not hope getting out of this mess’ – turn that record off. It is exhausting battling yourself on this and you are much less likely to succeed. I love Jen Sincero’s book You Are a Badass at Making Money which goes into a lot more thinking on how to get past negative money stories, but today – all you have to do is try and turn down the volume on one thought.
2. Check your bank accounts. All of them. Make sure you are not locked out of online banking, that you can access them all. You might set it up on your phone. Either way, checking your account means you are sure what you have (or not); what has been coming and going in terms of spend. You might notice a transaction you don’t recognise, or a direct debit you could cancel. Or you might have some extra in there that you can find a purpose for. Either way, knowing what is going on inside your bank account means that you are more able to control it. If the idea makes you feel anxious, know you are not alone – but consider whether the anxiety is really about what’s in your account, or what it means in terms of steps you might have to take.
3. Look into your work place pension. Ok, this might feel like a sneaky way of introducing One Massive Thing, but at this point all you are doing is research. If you are employed, even part time, a work place pension is likely to be the easiest and potentially one of the best things you can do in terms of planning for retirement. In the UK as in most countries, there is also tax relief which makes it a great way to build up money – and if your employer has a match, you also get free money as a benefit of working for them. Since it comes out of your wages before they hit your bank account, it’s a simple thing to ‘set and forget’.

Wellbeing

1. Replace one news bulletin with music. I am a sucker for radio – I love to know what’s going on in the world, and to keep up to date. But the constant bombardment of news these days, including how accessible and immediate it is, can feel overwhelming. There is, perhaps unsurprisingly, evidence that suggests humans have negativity-bias meaning that we internalise bad news and mentally engage with it in a way that we don’t with good news. So, why not try replacing one session of news with something else? For me, I also don’t make enough time for music which I love and really lifts my mood, so in a double-whammy I replace one bulletin with great tunes. It doesn’t stop there being bad things in the world, but neither does listening to the news on repeat.
2. Replace one TV show with something more creative. You might not watch TV but if you do, try skipping one show to do something else. The 30 minutes or one hour could be just what you need. And it doesn’t need to be something huge – do a jigsaw puzzle (I’m not 80 years old, it’s a pandemic truth); read a book that you have had for ages but not started; make a delicious lunch for tomorrow; draw or paint something; find your knitting wool, crochet hooks or what not and put them somewhere you can reach them when the TV goes back on. TV isn’t bad, but there are other things you could do too, just once.
3. Get some nature. Nature Deficit Disorder is really a thing, though a lot of the research focuses on children. Basically any interaction with the outdoors, is a good thing. From stopping work to spend a few minutes looking out of the window at whatever natural phenomenon you can see, to going for a full-on hike, every minute counts. Humans are programmed to engage with and respond to the environment in which we live, but modern life can make us feel disconnected. For your one thing it depends on where and how you live – but see if you can take a 20 minute walk; grow some herbs on your windowsill; or even just open the window. I changed my screensaver to a forest picture, and whilst it seems like a cop-out, just looking at it makes me feel better.

So – small things, and one-offs. Don’t forget to celebrate when you do something, however small it is – you got this.