The Microstep
Level 3: Master of the Mundane
Future Guardian,
What is the smallest, simplest, easiest, least risky thing you can do which gives you data and moves you toward your goal?
Right now,
GO!
Write it down.
Ok, that may be unreasonable to ask at the moment ...
This is a tricky subject. Yet, we talk about this all the dang time in The Guardian Academy. This is at the heart of most answers to challenges in The Arena.
The Microstep.
Your challenge throughout life,
Being a human …
(If you aren't a human, please do say hello in the comments)
You are going to be naturally highly inclined to overvalue and take giant leaps while undervaluing and avoiding smaller steps.
There’s an oft-told story that is used to drive people to bigger and bigger leaps.
“You’ve got to burn the boats!” they say.
The idea is that you must to take away all options for retreat in order to move forward. They use the story of Cortez trying to take an island and burning his ships in order to force his men to fight and win or die.
The problem with that story is … that’s not the whole story.
We trick ourselves into thinking that do or die is the best place to be in order to achieve and use stories like this to back it up. But CHOOSING to put yourself in a position where death is one of the options is a very bad idea.
In the story of Cortez what is left out is that if they had failed to take the island and returned home they would have all been put to death.
So in that story the choice made was actually the least risky of the options available. Certain death leaving and going home, or probably some death staying and fighting.
In life, you’re rarely facing do or die situations.
What actually ends up happening in our present life,
Is that in taking giant leaps you are far more likely to wreck yourself and fail to achieve the goals you really want, as opposed to taking smaller steps which dramatically increase the likelihood of achieving those goals.
If only we weren't so apparently programmed to self sabotage ...
Alas, THATs a conversation for another day.
Our answer to this is The Microstep.
I want to help you understand what a Microstep is, why it's valuable, and how to identify a Microstep for yourself.
In line with last weeks' article, let's try to create a prompt for ourselves so that we can consciously apply Microstepping where and when it is appropriate.
Ready?
Here we go ...
What is a Microstep?
Starting with the obvious question.
In The Guardian Academy a Microstep is essentially the lowest risk move you can make which will bring you new information toward the goal you are trying to achieve.
Easy right?
Let's unpack it :)
On a basic level this is all about risk and data, while moving forward to a goal.
For the sake of creating some relatable context, I'll say we have a goal to open up a pizza parlor (apparently I'm hungry right now).
Really our goal is to replace our current job with owning and running a pizza parlor.
How do we move forward to this goal from where we are now?
Well, many people might start by researching where they might have their pizza parlor. What kind of pizza they would serve. What the style would be like. The name. The branding. Etc. They might "plan" all this out and then go get a loan, start renting a space, building it out, and trying really hard to make their dream happen.
But,
They run into challenges. Barriers. It turns out differently than they expect. They can't figure out the cashflow they need to make it work. And eventually it all comes crashing down around them.
(Personally I don't know pizza parlors, but I know coffee shops and I've seen that pattern happen over and over)
That approach,
Is NOT Microstepping. Despite all the research they may have done all the preparation and planning.
What does Microstepping look like to this person and this challenge?
To figure that out we have to think deeply about all the steps involved in getting to the end goal, and break those steps down as small and as close to where we are NOW as possible to gather data that can help us move forward, without risking losing our ass in the process.
I'll unfold aspects of that as we move forward through the rest of this article,
But for now, I would posit that a Microstep for this person could very well be to simply answer the question - does anyone want to buy my pizza?
After all, if THAT isn't true, none of the rest matters. You might also answer the question, do I even like selling the pizza I make?
This is all a simple example,
But the point is, in a Microstep we find the lowest risk step we can take which gives us data that moves us toward to our end goal. Doing that data gathering reveals new information and new understanding which can - and dare I say usually does - change the path we're looking to take.
People often look at goal setting, and moving toward the goal, like looking at a map where you're HERE, and your goal is a few hills or mountains over THERE, and then you draw a straight line from HERE to THERE and start walking toward it.
But life doesn't work like that. If you walk in a straight line, chances are you'll just end up stepping off a cliff or drowning in a lake. As you step forward your steps reveal new information about the path and that changes how you chose to walk toward your goal.
That hopefully highlights the context in which we consider a Microstep as well.
Whenever you're trying to figure out what to do next - usually as you have some kind of goal in mind.
And usually this comes into play when you're dealing with uncertainty.
After all,
New = uncertain. As you move toward a goal you haven't achieved before, you unavoidably must move through new and therefore uncertain waters.
I'd suggest that the inclination toward large steps is actually an attempt to claim certainty. You have a vision of what you want, and so you move to claim that in as few steps as possible, to make it as certain as you can NOW.
To take smaller steps, to Microstep, is to consciously acknowledge that your goal is in reality quite uncertain. Not only may your path to the goal change, but your goal itself may also change.
And as we know,
“People prefer the certainty of misery to the misery of uncertainty.”
- Virginia Satir
If you can't accept the uncertain nature of the path you're on, you put yourself at the risk of wrecking yourself entirely because you spend your time trying to grasp or hold onto certainty.
But this actually turns out to be a perfect argument FOR Microstepping.
Because the nature of Microstepping is to take steps in uncertainty with as little risk as possible. The Microstep is as certain a move as you can make in the unavoidable state of uncertainty that arises while moving toward a goal.
Why Microstep?
There are the obvious reasons to take a Microstep (lowering risk, gathering data, while increasing the likelihood of achieving your goal) - but there are some non obvious reasons which sort of underly everything we're talking about.
Guilt and Shame.
People tend to have a lot of guilt and shame when it comes to goal achievement, doing work, and making their dreams happen.
Consider the pizza parlor example again. I can tell you I've personally had several conversations with similarly minded individuals who dream of opening a small local business like that (my experience revolves around coffee).
When you get this dream to make something happen in your life, especially in our society, there suddenly grows a lot of pressure to make that dream happen. It's easy to run into people who tell you that you have to work hard for your dream, you can't give up on your dream, you've got to put everything into your dream that you can or it won't come true.
And so when presented with the time and opportunity to work toward a dream people discover guilt whenever they are doing things which don't feel like they are moving toward their dream.
More on feeling later on.
But for now, we just have to address this Guilt and Shame. Because it's not possible to move toward a goal, toward something new, without running into failure, without discovering new information which changes the path that you travel.
In that context, one of the greatest risks of taking steps which are too big is the near inevitability that you get yourself into a position where you are stuck and end up in certainty failure. Microsteps help you avoid that by giving you enough data to change course as need be without risking your ass BUT
But
Microsteps also often don't seem like you're doing enough.
So, Guilt and Shame.
The way I see it you have two options.
The ideal solution is to just let go of guilt and shame altogether. Know that everyone is stumbling forward figuring things out as they go. If you feel down, worthless, swimming in imposter syndrome, and any other similar feelings, know that everyone else has experienced this where you are now, and anyone you see as successful has become so because they walked through that same place.
Easier said than done.
So the other option is to recognize the value and usefulness of taking smaller and smaller steps, and in really seeing the value to yourself in the moment, you can turn the entire dynamic on it's head. You don't have to feel guilt if you're moving forward, and a Microstep is always moving forward - especially if that step tells you to go back.
(More on that in a moment)
Straight Lines
I've already talked about how easy it is into trick ourselves to think that moving forward to goals is a straight line.
But more fundamentally we easily trick ourselves into thinking that change and growth is linear.
One fascinating dynamic that happens, which conscious Microstepping helps break, is that when you start getting really good at something two things tend to happen:
The first is that the steps you are able to quickly take start getting bigger and bigger.
Think about the first time you set yourself to a craft. Let's pick a wild one. Let's say I want to get really good at building violins.
The first violin I build is going to take me an insane amount of time as I'm learning the craft, how each step goes, how to shape and make each piece, how to fit it all together, the nuance, etc.
The second violin I build is going to be a little faster than the first because I've learned the steps, but I'm still new at the process.
Etc. It all makes sense right? Now imagine the 500th violin I've built. Many of those steps which once would take me hours to do I could probably move through in minutes simply because my skill and experience has made some of those steps second nature to me.
In that experience my perception of "small step" changes. The relatively big steps I'm taking feel small. So when I go into something new that becomes my barometer of small.
SECOND
The more you consistently get good at something ...
The less it feels like you are doing anything.
The more successful you are. The less successful you feel.
Again, more on feeling in a moment ...
But these are reasons why we want to consciously Microstep. Because our perception of what to do and how to do it changes, so we must ground ourselves in something verifiably unbiased - such as the smallest step you can take which has the least amount of risk and gets you data.
THAT is measurable. That reduces the influence of our feeling and perception about what were doing and what's going on, and gets us what's important. Moving forward and gathering data.
There's another hidden reason to Microstep, and this actually works out to be a nice reframe on the value of taking these smaller steps.
No matter what you do, whether you take huge leaps or small steps, its very easy to move forward and then find yourself in a position where you'd rather move back.
That's where a lot of guilt and shame comes into play. You have a goal and a dream, so you do a bunch of stuff to try to make that happen, discover it's not working, maybe even realize it's not for you but don't want to admit it, and then you just feel really bad all around. You tell yourself "I can't give up!" etc.
But understand that when you made the first decision to get started, it was probably a great decision. You got a dream, you wanted to make it happen. So you took action. Now you have data. And that data may tell you that isn't actually the dream you want - or the way to make that dream come true is different than you realize. Etc.
When you Microstep toward your goal, you get that data sooner and with less risk. You put yourself in a position where stepping backwards after you step forwards becomes easier and with less perceived cost due to the lower investment you made moving forward.
You can then find gratitude in the clarity that came with that Microstep. You can shed the guilt, when the Microstep gives you the information that you should turn around, and instead say "thank goodness I didn't go all in, I'd be really stuck up a creek on something I don't want to be doing."
Here's the thing,
Every time you discover data (measurable data, feelings, ideas, etc that all come out of action) which tells you to take a step back - that means you went the wrong way.
You don't want to ignore that.
Taking smaller steps means that you both spend less time going the wrong way AND means you get to that understanding sooner.
Let me give you one more reason to adopt Microstepping before getting into the how.
Taking smaller steps lowers resistance towards action.
This is a valuable dynamic if you are struggling with the uncertainty of action in moving forward toward a goal. Because uncertainty is inevitable, and your inclination is going to be toward certainty.
If you are afraid of taking action toward a goal because you are uncertain, then smaller steps lowers the barrier to action by lowering risk.
If you are worried about doing the wrong thing and ruining your chances of achieving your goal ... again, smaller steps lowers your risk so if you indeed DO the wrong thing, you'll find out quickly and be able to make the adjustments without causing your own ruin.
It's easy to get stuck in the mud, unsure of what to do, feeling like you can't move forward when you're presented with a big big picture of what you want.
Forget about the big picture and just focus on the smallest step you can take which gives you data.
How to identify a Microstep.
I like to think about this in terms of most immediate constraint.1
This is not necessarily an easy thing to do because unless you are used to identifying your most immediate constraint, it can be hard to tell what that is.
But the thing about using most immediate constraint to identify your best Microstep is that if you can't identify your most immediate constraint - THATs your most immediate constraint.
It kind of self identifies or helps you figure out the right thing in the moment.
Very convenient.
The Most Immediate Constraint is the step/challenge/action/roadblock on your path to your goal which is closest to you now, which when resolve will return or reveal new resources.
And the Microstep is the smallest move you can make with the least amount of risk toward resolving that most immediate constraint, which will give you data.
To me,
THAT is the most immediate constraint of the most immediate constraint ... (of the most immediate constraint, etc, until you get to that smallest step)
Here's an example:
Day trading - One of our Arena members shared this on our most recent call.2
He's been wanting to make a living for himself as a day trader, but it's not something he's done before.
How do you move forward in that state?
In thinking through the challenges of his position, he recognized that amongst his immediate constraints is the knowledge of whether or not he could do that consistently, create reliable results and ultimately trust himself in the process.
So he looked to figured out that constraint.
What are the constraints of figuring that out? Can I even do it? Can I make money? Can I be consistent? What does this even feel like?
Digging through this he figured out a small step with the least amount of risk ...
And chose to paper trade (fake money, real markets), just to observe what it was like.
Great Microstep.
He may not have thought about it in terms of constraints like that, but I find it to be an effective frame for intentionally figuring out your Microstep.
I've been doing this with writing a book - R3 for Email3.
Nic asked me to write an email specific version of his book for R3 based on my approach to email (which aligns well with R34).
Big task.
I felt overwhelmed by the process of writing a book, but I dug through my immediate constraints until I got to an action with low risk that returned resources to me, which moved me closer to my goal, and which would give me data toward achieving the outcome I desired ...
I started writing sections and ideas from the book for Man Bites Dog5 - filling the Tuesday publishing spot I already needed to write for.
Do you see how that works?
Finding the smallest step, closest to where you are now on the path to your goal, which has as little risk as possible, which gives you data, which either returns resources to you or gives you new resources.
That is the ideal action to take in this framework.
Here's another perspective you can take which is similar.
Consider your big huge task in front of you, and break down as much as you can every single step that is necessary to meet your end goal, all the way back to where you are now.
I want to build a house.
Ok well, I can't just build a house, I need materials, I need land, I need a plan, I need financing.
I can think through every step I can imagine and keep asking myself, well how can I make THAT happen?
Before I can build a house I need all the above, ok, so I need financing ... how do I make that happen?
Perhaps I need to figure out all these details from a budget perspective first. I need to look at our current budget, and figure out what kind of new expense we could bear. I can already tell that we can't take on another big loan ...
So now I need to map out the budget that I think we would need to have in order to take that next step.
I can probably keep digging on that.
It's a softer version of identifying most immediate constraint, centered around asking yourself "well, what needs to be true for that to happen?" over and over until you arrive at the simplest step that you could take right now.
In my house example, I might get to identifying the income we really need to make that happen.
Now I have a new goal.
Achieve that specific income.
Now it's time to identify new steps, and keep asking myself that question "what needs to be true for that to happen?" Until I get to the smallest step I can take now which gives me new data increasing the likelihood of achieving that goal.
Before I sign off,
NOW I'll touch on Feeling.
Because personally I think this is at the heart of everything we're struggling with when it comes to taking smaller and smaller steps towards our goals.
Feeling
The most dangerous state and, perhaps fundamentally, the most important reason to Microstep ...
We often make choices and do things because we want to feel something.
Or even, we feel like we need to feel more than we do now.
One of the reasons Microstepping can be difficult to wrap our heads around and move forward with is because when done right a Microstep often doesn't feel like anything.
Conversely, we get trapped into taking too big of a step because we can feel it.
To take an example from my experience as an email copywriter/consultant, one of the things I've discovered working with clients all the way from low 6 to high 7 figures is that the stuff which makes the biggest impact, which has the most consistently positive benefit to the business in the long term, often does not feel like anything at all.
The application of Allegiance Capital in email, where you tell people what they can expect when clicking on a link or visiting a page or opening an email ... this looks like nothing while you're doing it, and won't overtly show immediate results, but if you compare systems to systems over time, the system with AC woven through it contributes exponentially more to the growth of the business.
What these business owners tend to do is send an email and look for immediate sales converted directly from that email - because you can feel that.
And then they crank that feeling over and over and over while alienating their best audience.
(If that topic is of interest to you, head over to Man Bites Dog for more)
So the same goes for our own lives.
The more consistent and reliable things are, the less you are going to feel them. So we end up seeking novelty. We seek feeling because we think if we aren't having that forward moving feeling that we aren't actually progressing. We reach, we take leaps, all because feeling tells us to, and then we inevitably end up falling in those leaps, face-planting our lives.
This is how I wrecked myself in my coffee magazine publishing business. I had a marketing system which provided consistent growth. But it didn't feel like enough.
So I leaped.
And the whole thing crashed.
Perhaps you've done something similar in life.
Where you've had some sort of discontent, and you've identified a desire and a place you wish to go. A change you think you'd like to make. A new goal. A new job/lifestyle. Whatever it is you see somewhere else you'd like to be in life, and you can FEEL the gap between your current perception and where you want to be.
You want to feed that feeling.
You might even consider doing what could be a Microstep, but because it doesn't feel like anything you dismiss it as not enough.
Don't dismiss the Microstep.
If you can feel the movement you're trying to take, you are probably moving too fast, too far, in too few steps.
To borrow from Chris Voss6 - "If if feels good to say, don't say it" - similarly, "if it feel* really good to DO, don't do it."
Or maybe more usefully (in this case), if the thing you're trying to do is going to feel really good to do, maybe there's a smaller step you ought to take first.
If you found this to be valuable, you’ll probably find our conversation about the topic on our most recent Arena call to be equally valuable. You can find that here:
Be Useful. Be Present. Love the Journey.
, CMO The Guardian Academy
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6WU: Microstep to reduce risk. Embrace boring.
Microsteps is one of my favorite Guardian principles. They reduce friction and risk, compound over time, and encourage intentional action. Thanks for this piece, Joseph!