Ordinary Magic: The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts

by Gregory M. Walton

“By one of the great psychologists of our time, a book that shows us how we can answer the universal questions that define our Can I succeed? Do I belong? Am I loved?”—Carol S. Dweck, PhD, bestselling author of Mindset

Discover simple psychological shifts that build trust, belonging, and confidence—from the co-director of the Dweck-Walton Lab at Stanford University

The emotional questions we face can define our lives. If you’re expecting an interaction to go wrong, that expectation can make it so. That’s spiraling down.

But as esteemed Stanford psychologist Greg Walton shows, when we see these questions clearly, we can answer them well. Known to social psychologists as wise interventions, these shifts in perspective can help us chart new trajectories for our lives. They help us spiral up.

This is ordinary The ordinary experiences that help us set aside the ordinary worries of life to unleash extraordinary change.

Through vivid storytelling and insightful analysis of fascinating research—both his own and others’—Dr. Walton pulls back the curtain to reveal the magic at

• With our The few choice words from a parent or a teacher that builds trust and achievement.
• In our How the right opportunity to reflect, for just a few minutes before a conflict conversation, can engender greater intimacy among couples—even a year later.
• In How learning that everyone feels as out of place at first as you do at a new school—they really do—can unleash extraordinary potential, improving your life a decade later.
• In our how a one-page letter reduced recidivism among kids returning to school from juvenile detention by 40 percentage points; a postcard campaign cut suicide rates in half.

It’s easy to think problems are out of our control. But in fact, we have vast opportunities for change. Ordinary Magic puts the tools for change at your fingertips.

Genres: Self Help, Nonfiction, Psychology, Audiobook, Personal Development

465 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 25, 2025

Reviews

[BookTrib.com]

Small acts can have the biggest impacts, tell us more!

[Analie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I love about this book is how it beautifully captures the central questions people have. I recommend the first 100 pages. After that, the next 200 pages drone on in painful and fatiguing repetitions of small research studies to hammer home the same point.

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook of this and was very pleasantly surprised with how much I liked it! It's a great read for an Office Book Club, Teachers, or Parents. It helps for creating a welcoming community and guidance on how to help others start strong.

[Navin Valrani · Rating 4 out of 5]

From overcoming stereotype threats to enabling perspective getting, using the power of belonging, using implementation intentions to achieve objectives and treating people how you want them to be are all excellent strategies for students and workplace colleagues. A good read that requires one to constantly annotate and reflect - took a while to get through!

[J Kromrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this eARC.

✨ Gregory Walton’s Ordinary Magic is a masterclass in psychological subtlety—a book that doesn’t shout solutions but whispers them into the reader’s ear with clarity, warmth, and scientific precision. It’s not about grand gestures or sweeping reforms. It’s about the quiet, almost invisible nudges that shift lives, relationships, and communities toward flourishing.

📘 At the heart of Walton’s work is the idea of “wise interventions”—small, evidence-based actions that address the emotional questions we all carry.

🔍 What Makes It Magical

- Tidbits: Walton introduces the idea of “tiny facts, big theories”—how we take small events (a critical comment, a late reply) and spin them into sweeping conclusions about ourselves. Recognizing this pattern is the first step toward rewriting it.

- Narrative Power: Through vivid storytelling—both personal and research-based—Walton makes abstract psychology feel intimate. His own childhood spiral, sparked by a preschool rule and a picture day misunderstanding, becomes a metaphor for how easily we internalize identity.

- Practical Wisdom: From a one-page letter that reduced school recidivism by 40% to a seven-minute conversation that deepened couples’ intimacy a year later, the book is packed with real-world examples that feel both astonishing and accessible.

🧠 Themes That Resonate

- Belonging Uncertainty: Especially during transitions, we question whether we fit in. Walton shows how normalizing these doubts can unlock potential—like in his study where a one-hour session improved students’ lives a decade later.

- Emotional Architecture: Relationships are spirals, Walton writes. How we treat others shapes how they treat us. This insight reframes conflict as an opportunity for transformation, not rupture.

- Agency in the Everyday: The book insists that change isn’t reserved for experts or institutions. Anyone can wield ordinary magic—with a note, a gesture, a reframing.

🌟 Ordinary Magic is a quiet revolution. It doesn’t promise miracles—it reveals them. Walton’s gift is showing us that the most profound changes often begin with the smallest acts, and that we all have the power to spiral up. Whether you’re a teacher, partner, leader, or simply human, this book offers a blueprint for wiser living.

[Lori · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Ordinary Magic" looks promising at first look, so I eagerly accepted a copy of the ARC to learn more. While I'm not a fan of most self-help books, I've found benefit from works like "Atomic Habits" and a number of Brene Brown's writing, so was curious to see how Walton would frame his own research and work at Stanford.

There are a number of helpful and beneficial points made throughout this book, and Walton highlights his points with a varied number of contextual references, including his own life experiences, interviews with other individuals and groups, studies he and his peers have conducted, and larger scale historical research. Ultimately, the focus of this work is that small acts - body language and eye contact, the wording in emails and letters, the takeaways and action items noted, etc. can have significant and measurable impacts. At the end of each section, there are structured exercises and writing prompts that I thought would be useful for readers, especially in some of the action items and takeaways. This book conveys a good message, but these are things that many of us I think know, to some degree or another, through our own life experiences.

I struggled with the sheer length of this book, especially as many of the sections felt repetitive and redundant, and for a work of nonfiction, I found that there were so many personal and anecdotal experiences utilized versus larger scale studies with significant and measurable results. The structure of how this book was set up was confusing as well, and many sections seemed to overlap with the others. There are some subjects that Walton goes into, including the biases and differences across races and wealth classes, that felt strange to read especially as the author is a white male who's grown up without personal experience dealing with the many types of discrimination and social/ethnic expectations other individuals would go through.

I think this work could have been condensed into something more succinct, with more specific points and takeaways for individuals, especially those who want to take action and implement changes in their own lives.

Thank you Penguin Random House for the advance copy of this book!

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley and Rodale Inc for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I love a good nonfiction that is scientifically backed and can help humans become better humans. I especially love when they’re written in a colloquial and interesting way. With that said, this one started out really strong for me, but fell flat by the end. While I believe that the overall premise of the book is sound and well-defended, the book itself got really repetitive and I found myself losing interest rapidly by the end. I don’t tend to hyper focus on sources either but I also got the feeling that most of the studies cited were all performed by the same small handful of peers, which makes the science portion of my brain wonder if there’s more to the story that’s being avoided by not referring a wider range of studies. I truly hope not as the results found and put forth here leave me optimistic, but I still wonder.

[Kathy · Rating 2 out of 5]

A review of Ordinary Magic: The Science of How We Can Achieve Big Change with Small Acts by Gregory M. Walton.

I was very excited to be approved to read a review copy of this book and began reading it with expectations of learning a lot from it. It turned out not to be a good match for me at this time. Anyone who reads a lot understands that happens and acknowledging it casts no aspersions on the author, the material or anything else.

My sincere thanks to Rodale Harmony for allowing me to access a DRC of the book via NetGalley. Publication is 3/25/25. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

[Noureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how Gregory Walton takes these super interesting psychological studies and experiments and pairs them with his own stories and anecdotes to ties them to the core questions of who am I? Do I belong? It's not just a dry read; he makes the science feel so personal and alive.

The book gives incredible insight into how doubts and stereotypes can affect us on a subconscious level. It showed me how tiny, seemingly insignificant way of phrasing things could result in fundamentally changing our mindset and helping us overcome doubt.

[Jeremy Kitchen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Definitely has some interesting ways that small acts can make big changes, but the book felt too long and repetitive and lacked many ways to apply the information.

[Thiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[Alex]

DNF. Got about a fifth the way through and didn’t think it was for me..

[AJAX · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excited to read this one!

[Louise Sullivan · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a social psychologist, GregoryM. Walton, PhD, uses empirical evidence and research to present ways to bring about change. There are parts of this book that resonated to me and offered me guidelines in continuing my journey. The focus of other parts of the book, while interesting, felt to me to be more philosophical than practical. The one thing that I would change about this book if I could would be the title. I find the word magic to be out of place. The principles presented are not magical but based on practical analysis and applications.