The Quiet Power Of Small Steps

The Original Self Podcast

Welcome to The Original Self Podcast. I’m Evet DeCota, owner of DeCota Life Coaching. I’m a psychology-informed life coach exploring resilience, mindset, and the courage to become your authentic self. This is a space for honest conversations about growth, identity, relationships, and all the messy moments in between that shape who we become. Whatever brought you here today, you’re in the right place

I’ve noticed over the years, standing behind a salon chair and coaching individuals, is that people rarely come in for just a hair service or one single topic. They come to me carrying doubts, fears, dreams, and questions about who they are becoming.

Over time, I’ve realized that beneath all the noise of expectations, criticism, and life’s pressures, there is a version of ourselves that still exists. Let’s explore The Quiet Power of Small Changes.

For the last couple of years, I have watched a woman who works in the building next to my salon really struggle as she walks up a small incline in the street. She looks about twenty-five years old, with a very pretty face, and a body that I recognized, because I had once carried that same weight myself.

I previously worked in that building on the floor above her, and we often rode the elevator up together. I would listen to her try to control her breathing as she gently wiped the sweat from her face. I knew instinctively that if she were alone in the lift, she would be breathing very heavily. I feel an abundance of empathy for her, and I use the word empathy intentionally, because I have been extremely overweight, and I know what it feels like to conceal heavy breathing after nothing more than walking up a slight incline, as if I had just run a 10k.

I was so overweight that walking 300 feet made me see black spots and feel dizzy. I sweated constantly even in 40° weather, got easily winded, and lived with many aches and pains all over my body, severe reflux, and a constant stomach ache. I went on like this for a couple of years until one day, in 90°degree heat, I walked home from the salon and almost passed out while only moving at a snail’s pace. I sat down for ten minutes when I got inside and thought about my family history of heart disease, high blood pressure, and diabetes, and knew all three were coming for me quickly. That was the moment I made the first very small change and texted my doctor for help.

What I didn’t know in that moment was that I had stumbled onto something science has been telling us for quite a while about sustainable change. Sometimes the smallest step, taken at the right moment, can quietly rewire everything. And understanding why that works begins with understanding how the brain responds to change.

Here’s the fascinating part. Our brains are actually designed to resist change, not because we are weak or lacking discipline, but because the brain’s primary job is to keep us safe and to conserve energy. When we attempt a dramatic lifestyle overhaul, the brain can interpret that sudden upheaval as a potential threat. The part of the brain involved in detecting threat, the amygdala, can trigger a stress response that shows up as procrastination, anxiety, or exhaustion. We end up quitting before the new behavior ever has a chance to take hold.

Maybe that’s why every time I decided to lose weight and eat healthier, it would last anywhere from two to four months and then fade out. I would start to feel bored and frustrated, my focus would shift entirely to the end goal, and when the results didn’t come fast enough, I would quietly give up.

Habit Formation:

 The problem was never my desire to change; it was that I was trying to change everything at once. Small changes work very differently. They slip past the brain’s resistance almost undetected, and when you repeat a tiny action consistently over time, the part of the brain responsible for habit formation, known as the basal ganglia, begins to automate that behavior. What once required effort starts to feel natural and almost effortless, not because we forced the change, but because we allowed it to take root gradually. And perhaps that is why one of the most powerful things ever said about change has nothing to do with grand gestures at all. As Martin Luther King Jr said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

In other words, lasting change rarely begins with a dramatic overhaul. It begins with a small decision repeated often enough that it quietly becomes part of who you are, so trust in the process. That is not just a philosophical idea; it’s actually backed by research.

The author James Clear wrote something in Atomic Habits that has stayed with me. He describes how a one percent improvement each day, something almost too small to notice, can compound into remarkable growth over a year. When I think about change through that lens, it stops feeling overwhelming and starts feeling completely possible.

I remember the moment I realized something had genuinely shifted. For a long time, my body would crave sweets at night, and I would immediately get up and find something. So, I made one small change. I started waiting five to ten minutes before acting on that craving, just sitting with it instead of immediately feeding it. What I discovered was that most of the time, if I waited for that short window, the craving would quietly pass on its own. Over time, I realized that on many nights, I hadn’t thought about it at all. I had simply waited without reminding myself to wait. It had stopped being a strategy and become something else entirely; a part of who I was.

Before we move forward, I want to offer you this question to reflect on: What is one habit you have tried to build before that faded out, and looking back, was too big to stick with?

Micro Changes:

So how do we make changes without getting frustrated, bored, and eventually giving up? I think many immediately picture a complete lifestyle overhaul that starts on Monday (insert incorrect buzzer sound), wrong! What we can make are micro-changes that are so small the behavior feels almost effortless, but will immediately make you feel like you are actually moving forward.

A micro-change I began in the beginning was drinking one extra glass of water per day and swapping one highly caloric meal out for a more nutrient-dense one three days per week. As I continued throughout the months, those micro-changes became a habit that I increased throughout the whole week and for each meal. Around the same time that I was implementing micro-changes in my diet, I was also micro-changing my mindset by replacing one negative thought with a neutral one, making a list, mental or on paper, of one thing I was grateful for every morning, and pausing before reacting negatively in a difficult moment. I will admit that the reaction change is an ongoing work in progress.

Clear also makes the point that habit formation is not just about doing something differently, but about becoming someone different; a change in identity. For me, exercise looks nothing like what you might see on social media. I have a brittle bone disease that limits what my body can do, so I had to completely redefine what movement meant for me. I used to tell myself that if I could not do a real workout, there was no point in doing anything at all. That story kept me completely still for a long time.

The micro-change was simple. I started stretching for five minutes before I got out of bed. Not at the gym, not in workout clothes, just five minutes of gentle movement before my feet hit the floor. It felt almost too small to count as a change, but I kept doing it, and somewhere along the way, something shifted. I stopped saying I am not someone who exercises and started saying I am someone who moves her body in the way that her body allows. That identity shift changed everything, because it was no longer about what I could not do, but about honoring what I could do.

Changing how I define myself is not so much a “fake it ‘till you make it” attitude, but more of a connection with my inner self, coming back to my original self. The part of me that never doubted my actions and my ability.

Pause here for a moment and consider this: What is one change so small it almost feels too easy that you could begin tomorrow?

Consistency vs Motivation

 Understanding micro-changes is one thing, but putting them into practice over time is another. What actually determines whether a small change becomes a lasting habit has very little to do with how inspired or motivated we feel on any given day.

There is a belief that most of us carry around without ever questioning it. We treat motivation as the prerequisite for change, the catalyst that has to arrive before we can move forward. “Once I feel motivated, I will start; Once I feel ready, I will begin; Once I feel inspired, I will take action.” But behavioral psychology tells us something that completely challenges that assumption. Motivation does not create action. Action creates motivation. Let me say that again: Motivation does not create action. Action creates motivation. We have it completely backwards.

This is not just a philosophical idea; it is rooted in how the brain actually works. When we take action, even the smallest and most unglamorous action, the brain’s reward system responds. It registers that we followed through, releases a small amount of dopamine, and suddenly, we feel a little more capable, a little more like someone who follows through. That feeling is what we call motivation, and it was generated by the act of starting, not the other way around. Which means that every time we sit and wait to feel motivated before we begin, we are actually waiting for something that can only be created by beginning. Consistency is not what happens after motivation arrives. Consistency is what summons motivation in the first place.

I know this pattern intimately because I have lived it myself. When I first started promoting my coaching business, I had so many ideas about how to do it that I would become completely overwhelmed before I ever began. I thought that if I wrote a blog, I would need to cite every source like a college essay. I was uncomfortable with the idea of being on camera, and I secretly wanted to do a podcast but had no idea how, plus I convinced myself that nobody would care anyway. So, I ruminated on every idea I had and implemented none of them.

The mindset shift for me was not dramatic or sudden. It did not arrive with a lightning bolt moment of clarity. It arrived quietly, sometime around Christmas, when I simply stopped swirling around which idea was the right one and decided to try them all. I stopped waiting for the perfect plan and started treating every idea as worth attempting. Because the truth is, you can’t know what will resonate, what will feel natural, or what will actually reach people until you begin. The pursuit of perfection can become a very convincing form of avoidance. The shift from thinking to doing, from planning to starting, from waiting to beginning. That is where everything changed for me, and it can change for you, too.

Consistency for me has never looked particularly glamorous. Some days I write at my desk, other days I am typing on my phone, or voicing an idea into a notes app on a break, or talking to myself in the car because a thought arrived that I did not want to lose. Sometimes consistency looks like catching the idea wherever it finds you.

There are days when I sit down and feel like I have nothing new to say. On those days, I have found that the answer is not to push through the resistance but to move toward stillness. A little deep breathing, a moment of rest, and the thoughts begin to find their way back.

I have skipped days of writing, but I can’t remember a day when I did not jot down at least one idea. I have written things that were, to put it plainly, should have never seen the light of day, but I keep coming back. Not because every day feels inspired, but because somewhere along the way, writing and speaking, whether it’s a blog post, a social media caption, or this podcast, became less something I do and more simply a part of who I am.

I still see her sometimes, the young woman at the building next to the salon, making her way up that small incline. I no longer just feel empathy when I see her; I feel something closer to hope. I know that change doesn’t begin with a dramatic overhaul or a perfect plan or even the right amount of motivation. It begins with one small decision, made quietly, on an ordinary day. A text to a doctor, five minutes of stretching before your feet hit the floor, one glass of water, or one idea jotted down in a parking lot.

I don’t know her story, I don’t know what she carries or what she has already tried or what small changes she may already be making in ways I can’t see, but I know this. The most powerful transformations rarely announce themselves; they slip past the brain’s resistance almost undetected. One tiny action at a time, until one day you look up and realize you have become someone you almost did not believe you could be.

The science is clear, the research supports it, and if my own experience has taught me anything, it is that the smallest decisions made consistently over time are far more powerful than the grandest intentions made once and abandoned. That is the quiet power of small changes

The last reflection question I want to ask you is: Where in your life are you still standing at the bottom of the staircase, waiting to see the top, when all you really need to do is take one step?

Thank you for listening to The Original Self Podcast. If these reflections resonate with you and you’d like to explore your own growth, let’s talk.