Small Move, Big Change: Using Microresolutions to Transform Your Life Permanently

by Caroline L. Arnold

"The most useful guide to getting things done since Getting Things Done."--Adam Grant,  author of Give and TakeLearn how small behavioral changes can lead to major personal and professional self-improvementWhether trying to lose weight, save money, get organized, or advance on the job, we’re always setting goals and making resolutions, but rarely following through on them.  According to longtime Wall Street technology strategist Caroline Arnold, the “big push” strategy of the New Year’s resolution is designed to fail, because it broadly pits our limited willpower stores against an autopilot of entrenched behaviors and attitudes that is far more powerful.  To change ourselves permanently, we need to focus our self-control on precise behavioral targets and overwhelm them.  Small Move, Big Change is Arnold’s guide to turning broad personal goals into meaningful and discrete behavioral changes that lead to permanent improvement. Providing scores of engaging real-world examples and new scientific findings, she shows us that while the traditional resolution promises rewards on a distant “someday,” microresolutions work because they reward us today by instantly altering our routines and, ultimately, ourselves.

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Personal Development, Business, Productivity, Leadership

272 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 16, 2014

About the author

Caroline Arnold has been a technology leader on Wall Street for more than a decade, managing some of the financial world’s largest software development teams and leading some of the industry’s most visible and complex initiatives. A dynamic and engaging speaker, she has appeared before groups as large as 5,000 people. Caroline is a recipient of the Wall Street & Technology Award for Innovation for building the auction system for the Google IPO, and her name appears on technology patents pending. Caroline serves as a Managing Director at a leading Wall Street investment bank.

Caroline graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in English Literature, and lives in New York City with her husband and daughter.

Reviews

[Helen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Super method/advice for anyone wanting to reach personal goals. Fresh approach to making marginal behavioral changes that have a big impact but are completely doable. Book is very readable, funny, rich--no padding. Seven rules of how to make resolutions that always succeed and a chapters on each area of self-improvement with really entertaining and useful success stories of people who made microresolutions that changed their lives. I have been doing the microresolution method for several weeks with great results.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Received this as a Goodreads giveaway, and although the prose is serviceable and examples well-chosen, the premise is rather thin to sustain a 200+ page book. The basic premise is that by choosing and targeting a limited resolution a permanent behavioral change can be sustained. For example, instead of resolving to lose weight a micro resolution maybe not to eat an afternoon cookie that is readily available in a conference room. I think the author's premise is a wise one and believe that this type of mindset can lead to genuine change. However, once the premise has been explained in part 1, and some basic research is cited to support the author's recommendation, there is a myriad of micro resolutions surrounding organization, diet and nutrition, relationships, etc., over the last 150 pages of the book that leads to repetition and boredom. Additionally, its surprising the author doesn't cite the SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-limited) concept since it seems that she is referencing them when she writes "to be absolutely achievable, it must be limited." Despite these limitations, for people who are action-oriented and want specific examples on how to implement personal improvement techniques to improve their lives, Arnold's book is a clearly written, accessible, friendly entreaty to the reader who has tried to sustain change but who has had difficulty in execution.

[Maslan's hierarchy of reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has really changed my life. I went from living in constant clutter to a neat home. I have tried so many books to help me with clutter,and none have worked except this one. When I started reading this book I divided in thinking it wouldn't work. This book started having me do little things,but by the end it was automatic, and all those little things became a big difference.

[Deanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very simple, straight forward approach to helping yourself adopt better habits. People who are intuitively organized, self disciplined, good at relationships, punctual, at a healthy weight, etc. will look at this book and say, "Seriously?.... Someone had to write a book about this? But for those of us who are not naturally gifted at life-management, this strategy is extremely helpful. I have read and listened to lots of "get control of your life" books and lectures. But there always seemed to be a gap between learning the amazing concepts and putting them into practice. I thought it might be that I was somehow afraid of success, and such a fear was thwarting my efforts as soon as I saw a bit of improvement from my behavior modification program. Then I decided I had ADD which kept me from any kind of stick-to-itivness for more than 3 days. Finally, I decided it was some deep rooted subconscious emotional trauma that I must have suffered as a child or in a past life, that had to be cleared before I could achieve control over my scattery self. Well, guess what. It's just a simple matter of establishing better habits. Who knew?! No medicine or psychotherapy needed. This book explains in simple terms, with lots of examples, how to figure out a very small, easy to achieve change that will start to affect your habits. It explains how to link your desired new habit to an established one so there is a cue to help you remember to do the new thing. She helps us make a phrase to say in our head to counteract the impulsive habitual thoughts that derail us from our good intentions. (But don't worry that it is some kind of "positive affirmations" type thing. It's more a memory jogger trick.) My favorite was her idea of zero-tolerance. That one is what really helped my changes start to stick.

The one drawback for me (a stay-at-home-mom, with 5 kids, and no two days are ever the same) is that Caroline wrote this from her perspective. (Works in an office, one child, very structured life in a big city.) So most of her examples center on the activities she is familiar with. The concepts apply to everyone, but those of us outside of her paradigm just have to use our imaginations a little more to think up ways to apply it to ourselves.

So, if you are already pretty good at refining out your bad habits on your own, this book will insult your intelligence. Just don't laugh at the rest of us who could really use the help and encouragement that this microresoultions idea provides. I imagine that if I keep using this technique, I'll be perfect in about 10 years! Yipeee!

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offers an excellent and simple method to change your life. Much like Dan and Chip Heath's "Switch", Arnold's remedy for transformation comes back to changing your automated path by making small adjustments rather than massive goals or changes to your daily regimen.

Already I am more organized, self confident, and focused thanks to the insights in this book. Looking back at this book in the future I want to remember the seven rules for a micro resolution:

1 - A micro resolution is easy. Small changes bring big benefits - keep your resolution limited, reasonable, and achievable --easy.

2 - A micro resolution is an explicit and measurable action. Lay out the action of your resolution -what,when, how. Cue your resolution (when I walk in the door I will . . . when I open my computer I will . . . )

3 - A micro resolution pays off up front. It brings an immediate and valuable benefit, by design. Never think of your microresolution as an increment, merely a stepping-stone on the way to a future goal; the benefit your microresoution delivers today is the goal.

4 - A micro resolution is personal. It must be designed by you, for you, based on observation of you own habits, attitudes, and situation. Use internal messaging to re frame mindsets.

5 - A Micro resolution resonates. Instead of "I resolve to chew my food slowly" reframe the solution as "I resolve to dine leisurely and savor my food and drink." The reframing expresses a positive value rather than simply stressing a negative one. Remember the power of zero-tolerance framing: use only for situation where such vigilance -even zealotry- is necessary to guard against the mistep that leads to indulgence, lack of control, true disorder.

6 - A microresolution fires on cue. Establishing a strong link between an action and its cue is essential for making a new behavior automatic.

7 - Make microresolutions just two at a time. Limiting your resolutions ensures that you have the attention and endurance to stick with a behavioral shift until it becomes autopilot.

[Jackie Mceachern · Rating 5 out of 5]

I can honestly say this book has changed my life. I'm a person that constantly is setting goals - from small to large - and failing to achieve them for one reason or another. It had left me feeling hopeless in areas of organization, personal growth and time management. This book helped me understand why my previous attempts had failed and helped me so much in setting about marginal improvements. It has totally clicked for me. I will keep this book as a reference and am truly glad that I stumbled upon it.

[Kathleen Ehrenberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not a fan of self-help books, but this one incisively applies common sense and offers a doable approach to conquering resolutions. Read it before New Years - it might change your life.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really like this book! I read when I was using the bike (weight goal) The book kept my attention, didn't get bored with it at all. I plan to apply the lessons of doing little things to get the big thing done. Last night I picked an area of the Kitchen. (doing everything is just too much at once). I was reading the current Glamor magazine today and noticed they did an article on the book as well. Good book to start the New Year with, to get one thinking about goals, so many examples that as so true in my life. ie. internet shopping --true I can't live without; although with endless choices/deals/coupons I do need to limit my time and decide what I want before spending countless hours. May reread the book next Jan. or suggest family members to read it. Thanks for writing it.

[Tracy Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes a person just needs a little extra guidance when making important decisions in life. Maybe you require a boost to get motivated or a different perspective to get you started. I found all three of these things in this book. I never expect someone else to solve all my problems, but I believe the more you learn and try to grow as a person, the better off you are. I recently decided to change careers and I found this book helped me focus on what was most important in that transformation. You can easily apply this book to any goals you are trying to pursue. I recommend this book.

[Caro · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know that micro-resolutions can work (just look at my bed, made every day for the last 35 years), but this could have been a magazine article and been just about as good.

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most books and articles of the kind we read in order to finally take ourselves in hand tend to be written from the professional adviser’s point of view, because, of course, they are written by professional advisers—psychiatrists, personal trainers, nutritionists, celebrity beauticians, finance wizards, yogis. These experts often jolly the reader along as “we,” but too often they clearly mean “you”—your attitude, your diet, your checkbook, your relationships, which I am going to tell you how to fix. Not this expert. When Caroline L Arnold uses the first person plural in talking of attitudes and habits good and bad, and resolutions tried and tried again, she means it: she developed and honed and used her system of resolution-keeping and habit-changing on herself first and others later, and although she has clearly backed her personal experience with solid research in the field before committing it to publication, her book is grounded in and framed by her own trials and triumphs, as a fellow self-improver taking herself in hand and a focused, logical thinker working out how to extend that hand to others. This gives her book an unusual kind of authenticity, an authority that is humanly accessible as well as factually believable. It also makes for a very good read, offering all pleasures of a bildungsroman—or series of bildungsromans, for along with her self-education, told with humor, sharp observation, and inspiring flashes of self-knowledge, she shares the stories of friends and colleagues who furthered her research by trying her system and were rewarded with personal triumphs of their own.

The “micro resolution” system, self-improvement through small, focused, sustainable behavior changes, works—as the book points out—because it’s based on the way we naturally form habits and why we form them, and because from the first day, each repetition of a new behavior is an immediate reward in itself. But in my opinion it also works because it fits the time we have and the world we live in. For most of us, that world is not primarily the gym, yoga studio, therapist’s office, diet clinic or similar improving places where so many self help–book writers are paid to spend their day, just as I am paid to spend mine at a magazine and the author of Small Move, Big Change at a brokerage firm, and you perhaps in a law office or restaurant or classroom or ad agency or Starbucks or the Apple genius bar. This self-help book is different—to come back to my first point—and impresses me because it was written by someone who had to fit her obligations to herself, including self-improvement, into a schedule packed with obligations to others, learned to do it with great success, and then turned it into a highly readable book so that others could do it, too. If you're planning a journey of self-improvement for 2014, this book is a five-star guide.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book in a day (skimming just a couple chapters that didn't really apply to me). I recognized myself in many of the descriptions and examples throughout the book and I'm guessing many people would feel the same. The overly ambitious and vague resolutions so many of us set, without a real plan for how to achieve them, typically sets us up for failure right out of the gate. Given daunting goals like "lose 20 pounds" or "get organized" or "exercise more", we generally flounder, make excuses and fall back into old habits quickly because it's so unrealistic to think we can just completely change ALL of our habits at the same time. So many of our habits are ingrained from childhood or young adulthood and yet we think just by saying we want to change them, we will.

Caroline Arnold's book guides us to make microresolutions, small changes that are less overwhelming and more specific. If maintained consistently for a few weeks (sometimes more), these microresolutions become new habits and can lead to big results. As I read, it just kept clicking. It makes so much sense! Losing 20 pounds feels overwhelming. But a microresolution to start brushing your teeth and getting ready for bed at 8:00 every night so you aren't doing your bedtime routine when you're already exhausted feels very manageable and guess what? It leads to less evening snacking, more sleep (the chapter on sleep was really impactful for me), less temptation to eat in the evening to keep yourself awake, more time for your body to digest food while you sleep, etc. It will most definitely help someone reach a goal to lose weight, to get more sleep, etc. And because it's specific and measurable, it's easier to stay on track. That is just one example of many in the book. Topics include fitness, sleep, eating, finances, clutter, organization, relationships, etc.

I'm going to start applying what I read in my own daily life and if I have the results I'm hoping for, I will bump this up to 5 stars. I think this is a great resource for anyone who is sick of breaking resolutions and wants to try a new method for making real, permanent changes in some of your habits!

[Danny Biles · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very helpful book. The basic idea is that you can make big changes in your life by making a number of small, easy changes into habits. One of the reasons I wanted to read this book is that I have found this out for myself, and many of the strategies that seemed to be successful for me are confirmed here. The book might appear at a glance to be a lot of fluffy repetition, but it is actually well-researched.

[Bojana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the concept of microresolutions and the examples listed in the book were great food for thought.

[فاطمة غانم الابراهيم · Rating 4 out of 5]

" من السهل الالتزام بتنفيذ القرار المصغر "
هذا ما تؤكده السيدة كارولين، فالمرء اعتاد القيام بسلوكيات منذ الصغر إلى أز غدت سلوكاً تلقائية يصعب تغييرها تغييراً جذرياً مالم تبدأ من القاعدة قبل القمة ؟ فحينما يرغب المرء بأن يكون مسكنه مرتباً ونظيفاً لايتوجب أن يقوم بالتنظيف الكلي يومياً فلو اكتسب سلوكاً جديداً كأن يرجع الأشياء في أماكنها قبل مغادرته الغرفة ، لن تحدث الفوضى كما في السابق لاحاجة للترتيب مما يعني تنظيف أقل .

كما أن النظرة التشاؤمية تجاه الذات نظراً لسلسلة الاخفاقات في انقاص الوزن يحبط العزيمة فلو آمن بقدرته في التخلص من الوزن الزائد وتحلى بالصبر ، لأثمرت بنتائج مرضية .

بل السبب الرئيس الذي يخفق فيه الكثيرون لبلوغ غايتهم هو ( تركيزهم على الهدف أكثر من الفعل ) كأن يرغب أن يكون ناجحاً في وظيفته دون أن يركز في مسألة قراءة الكتب والدراسات ذات علاقة ، بذلك ومع الممارسة المستمرة نحو الوعي يكون الوصول إلى الهدف أكثر واقعية ، لذا ترى كارولين ( ركز على الفعل لتصل إلى هدفك ) ، ولا تزحم نفسك بأكثر من فعل واحد فمتى ما اكتسبته إلى أن غدا سلوكاً تلقائياً حينها تبنى فعلاً آخر مصغر .

وعلى سبيل الادخار لكل من يعاني منه بالامكان تطبيق عنصر واحد كفيل بإنجاح الأمر كإعداد وجبات الافطار بدلاً عن الطلب من المطاعم بل نتيجة تطبيق هذا القرار الذي يولد الاستمرار فيه إلى عادة وسلوك تلقائي ليس فقط يوفر قيمة وجبات الافطار طوال ٣٠ يوماً والتي قد تقدر بخمسون دينار بل حتى نقصان بعض من الكيلوغرامات نتيجة التحكم في السعرات ومعدل الدهون .

ولمن يرغب في اكساب عادة محببه للنفس كترغيب نفسه في القراءة خاصة من يعاني ضيق الوقت ، يكون هنالك ( فعل قابل للقياس ) فتحديد قراءة عشر صفحات يومية ، لكن من المهم تحديد الوقت كذلك فترك الموضوع إلى أن يحدث في أي لحظة لن يجعل قرارك ملموساً لذا ليكون هذا السلوك فيما بعد عادة من الممكن القول قبل الخلود إلى النوم ، أو قبل مغادرتك السيارة للذهاب إلى المكتب .

(القرار المصغر والاشارة الدالة عليه ) يعد المنفذ لتعديل سلوك أو اكساب سلوك جيد كي يغدو تلقائياً وأكثر واقعياً في الانضباط عليه ، والذي يخدم الهدف الأساسي، ومن الممكن تطبيق على أحد جوانب الحياة المنزلية ، فهدفك العام تقليص مهام المنزل وأدائها بوقت أقل ، نبدأ بقرار مصغر أرضية المنزل تحتاج إلى العناية والتنظيف بصفة مستمرة ، لتعديل السلوك خلع الحذاء (قرار) قبل الدخول إلى المنزل (إشارة) ، بذلك حد من تنظيف أرضية المنزل يومياً وبجهد أقل وحالما يغدو سلوكاً تلقائيا لدى جميع أفراد الأسرة تبني قرار مصغر آخر كغسل الأطباق (قرار) فور الانتهاء تناول الطعام (إشارة) .

(الفحص الذاتي الدقيق ) ويعني عندما نتفق أنا وأنت على هدف بجعل المسكن منظماً نظيفاً فعند اتخاذ قرار مصغر لا يعني أن نتوافق معه !

فقد يعاني أحدهم من ترك الملابس على الأرض بعد تغيير لباس العمل في حين الشخص الثاني اعتاد على إلقائها في سلة الغسيل فور خلع الثياب ، لذا من الضروري أن تكون المحكم الذاتي لأنفسنا وهذا ما تريد قوله كارولين فلايهم ماهى القرارات المصغره فلكل منا لديه عادات سيئة تحد من تحقيق الهدف العام لذا الفعل المتبع ليست قوائم ثابته وإنما يعتمد على نمط حياة القارئ نفسه المختلفة عن أي قارئ آخر ، لذا وحده يعرف الجواب .

[Clare · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this, I understand why, when I've made small promises to myself, I've been much more successful than when I've made big resolutions. To lose baby weight from my triplets pregnancy, I resolved to lose 15 lb. Finally I got frustrated, abandoned that goal and decided, "I can't lose weight, but I can improve my health. NO French Fries!" After it became habit to ignore the fries that restaurants serve beside the sandwiches, I decided to "make a big pot of soup on Sundays and then divide it into servings to take to work for lunchtime every day." When my lunches were mostly vegetable lunches, the weight melted off.

And because "skip French fries, eat soup" is such a manageable habbit, I've been able to keep the weight off for almost 3 years now.

This author's research shows exactly why this worked for me. It's not my imagination - there's evidence that this strategy works and the author shows how you can apply it to almost any area of life. Knowing this, I'm inspired to keep going.

The book gives examples - and I stole one already! I have 4 kids under age 10. You can imagine the snack wrappers, crayons and errant socks that turn up in my car. The book suggested a Micro Resolution: ZERO Tolerance for items left in the car. Now, I'm announcing this resolution to the kids every time we park the car and they empty the car with me every time.

And where do you go from here? How long does it take for a new habit to stick or for a bad habbit to be gone for good? The book gives suggestions for time frames and also suggestions for how many Micro Resolutions you might reasonably tackle together at once.

So that you can continue improving yourself for years to come, Arnold explains how to identify situations that trigger our poor habits and use these triggers to create new Mirco Resolutions. For example, a person may find that she over-eats when dining with co-workers. What triggers it? Perhaps it happens because friends want to share samples of the different foods they've ordered. Recognizing that this interaction triggers overeating, this girl might set a Micro Resolution to "only eat the foods that I personally ordered for myself." This is a much more manageable goal than skipping dinner with friends (which hurts social well-being) and it's easier than trying to do fasting all day before the dinner (b/c then she'll be so hungry by dinner time that she overeats due to appetite.)

I'm inspired and will continue making more Micro Resolutions (and helping my kids to do so, too) so that I can be a better me each day.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the idea of the micro resolution, and I like her "rule" of not having more than two resolutions going at a time. However, there was a lot of filler in this book, especially in the final chapters which included exhaustive examples of resolutions applied to different aspects of one's life (dieting, finances, organization, tardiness, etc.).

[Ronen David · Rating 2 out of 5]

You understand the point allready after only 50 pages...

[Ami Elizabeth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting... some solid ideas

[Karin de Oliveira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gostei muito do livro e das dicas para mudar comportamentos.
Um pouco comprido para a proposta, mas interessante.

[Amanda Slack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good ideas. Nothing that I didn't already know, but a good reminder of how to use small changes to have a healthier and more productive lifestyle.

[Tim Nason · Rating 2 out of 5]

2⭐️ The basic idea of the book is good solid advice: achieve your big resolutions in daily incremental actions, keeping such actions simple so they become part of your daily auto-pilot routine. Much of the book after the first few pages is padding and repetitive. The book’s premise could form a great workshop for individuals, businesses and community non-profits.

[Taif_a_240505 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Matilda is a smart girl that has an exciting life by facing different types of people depends on their characteristics, which let her to have a good knowledge how to deal with these kinds of people. In addition, she uses her simple magic by behaving badly to her family and her neighbor’s, because this reason helps her to attend to the school. Moreover, when she attends to the school she has good relations with her classmates and her teacher called Miss Honey, and she learned about the bad leader of her school called Trunchbull. Therefore, Matilda gives Miss Honey a small useful tragic lets her teacher to return her happily life by scaring her leader and her aunt “Trunchbull”. In my view, I learn a lot of useful values that lets me being cleverer when I should deal with people that have bad behavior. Also, I learn that when the person has a goal she/he should work hard and use good tricks to achieve her/ his goal usefully. Finally, one of the important exciting things that I like in this book is the style of the writer “ Roald Dahl” because he used simple vocabulary that lead all age-group can read it easily, and understand the story well until the end of the book and he used a clever way that let the events of the story moving smoothly. It’s an interesting story, so I advise all age-group to read this book.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've been on a "self help" reading binge...13 Walks is sort of that kind of book, the book about successful Kids, Switch (another book about change) Happiness at Home...I think I've been reading them because I'm teaching the fifth grade health class, the social and emotional component. Since we've talked about anger and dealing constructively with anger, I wanted to balance this with talking about what makes us happy. We've also talked a lot about "grit and resilience" and about setting goals. This book about "microresolutions" is the best so far, I think. Based on recent findings about the amount of energy that goes into making changes, making decisions and drawing on will power, the author describes the impact that simple, clearly stated and manageable microresolutions can have on a person't life. I'm hooked. I'll shift my rating to five stars if it makes the difference for me that I think it just might. I recommend it highly.

[Audrey's Book Corner · Rating 3 out of 5]

The purpose of this books is to make us learn how microresolutions are the way to change our habits. Instead of doing a big one year resolution, it's better to make a tiny resolution that we're sure to keep and then improve when it has become a new habit. The books has two main parts: one that give tips on how to make microresolutions and the other that gives many examples of microresolutions in different aspect of life (fitness, weightloss, organisation,...).

The subject of the book was really interesting, but I found it lacking on content. There were a lot a long explanations that could have been cut out to 2-3 sentences. You could definetly gain from this book, but don't expect too much.

[Sandy Hall · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received this book as an early read via NetGalley. The author uses a very inviting "voice" in her writing and her advice is certainly useful, but I wouldn't say I found anything new to get excited over. I don't think that's a reflection on the author, I think it's more that there really ISN'T anything new to say about how to change your thinking or habits in order to be more efficient, organized or successful. It's all been said, the magic bullet has been common knowledge for a lot of decades now, The only thing left to do is actually DOING the steps necessary to make the changes we desire. Doing is a lot harder than reading, so...another book about how to "do".

[AdultNonFiction Teton County Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

TCL call number: 158.1 Arnold C

Diana’s rating: 4 stars
Made any resolutions lately? How's that going? If your answer is "not so good," but you do really want to make a change, pick up this book. It will help you rephrase and redefine a larger resolution into a microresolution or two that you will be able to keep, by following a few simple steps. Microresolutions are personal, specific, success-oriented, and positively framed. The first part of the book explains how to set microresolutions, giving you the steps it takes to succeed, and the second part addresses some of the common categories of resolution making, like organization, spending, and fitness.

[Sandhya · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book contains two parts. The first part expalins what a microresolution really is, why we need it and how we can get the best from these microresolutions! The second part contained the experiences which gave the reader on ideas on when and where to use these microresolutions. This method really resonates with me and I think a lot of others out there because we are tired of making resolutions we cannot keep. Making microresolution helps get the job done and a good self image. Like other self help books this book is only helpful once you actually start doing them!

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It was honestly a game changer for me. Where Marie Kondo left me perplexed and overwhelmed with her "organize everything at once" method (which I always fail at), this book gave me hope for small, manageable change in my life. Arnold's system and approach is one I believe that I can really follow and one that is realistic and provides lasting change. I've already embarked on some successful micro-resolutions and I look forward to seeing how I can continue to implement these strategies in my life.

[Patricia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found many helpful ideas on what to do right away to help organize my life.
I really like the idea to slow down while eating. To savor and enjoy. It's about being mindful.
My favorite message was changing negative thoughts in small ways because it really is a great start to improving your life.
The Author speaks frequently of that and of seeing your glass as half full and that to me is always a good read.