I’ve always been impressed by the majesty and capacity for emotions of elephants, ever since I learned that they mourn their dead. Maybe that’s why these animals are showing up in yet another of my analogies. A previous blog focused on their tendency to stay stuck due to old beliefs. This time, it’s that rather unpleasant comparison to eating them. You know, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”

The comparison sprang to mind as I thought this morning about micro changes—small incremental alterations that result in a substantial impact.

In the six years since I began coaching, I’ve learned a really important lessons from my clients that I sure wish I’d known when I was a practicing physician. It might have helped me change some of the practice-level issues that led to my experiencing burnout and leaving practice 20-plus years ago.

Take Lisa. When Lisa approached me for help, she’d been a primary care physician for 14 years. She has 3 small children and is heading into burnout. She’s begun to dread going to work.

According to her contract, she works just 3 days per week, but it takes her 7 days a week to complete all the paperwork. “I just want one day a week completely away from work,” she tells me.

I help her move from being paralyzed by the enormity of the healthcare system issues that she can’t change to seeking out micro changes where she has some agency.

She has a long list of frustrations, mostly relating to documentation in the electronic health record. Though skeptical, she experiments with a small change: focusing on finishing each clinic note before seeing the next patient. To do this she spends a little time preparing charts the night before and keeps top of mind the benefits of finishing the note now instead of delaying.

Two weeks later, she says with a huge smile, “I had a Saturday completely off. I wish I’d done this 14 years ago!” Having a day off has a ripple effect on her whole life, and she begins to love her work again.

Honestly, I was shocked by how quickly these small changes added up to a big difference in her daily experience at work. Yet, I’ve seen this same scenario play out over and over again.

Micro changes hold enormous power to help individuals reduce their risk of burnout. (And, when enough individuals have reduced their risk of burnout, they can regain the bandwidth to collectively advocate for solutions to the larger system-level issues that plague the organizations in which they work.)

The key is stepping outside, or maybe above, the overwhelm and exhaustion of the everyday grind to find a place to start. A second success factor is approaching each micro change with the curiosity of a researcher.

If one experiment fails, a researcher tweaks the variables or tries something else, rather than giving up entirely. Holding the experiment lightly helps you maintain the motivation to keep trying.

Is there a frustration or inefficiency at work where you might experiment with a micro change? What obstacles might you anticipate and pre-empt? Who might support you?

Give it a try and experience the power of micro changes for yourself. Who knows how much happier and productive you might be! 

And if you’d like some ideas to get started, let’s talk.