It’s The Little Things That Count…..

It’s human nature to focus on the big things. Whether it’s a BHAG, a closing presentation for a major deal, a big job opportunity, a critical event. We obsess about how we succeed. We develop strategies, contingency plans, prep and rehearse. We are driven to succeed for those big things.

We treat the little things differently. We may skip them, thinking they aren’t important. We may not prepare well, winging it. We may not even recognize what they are. Things like showing up on time, being prepared, the thank you note. Even if it’s something no one else sees, there are little things we have to do.

The reality, our success is more based on our ability to execute the little things than it is on the big things.

The big things are never one big thing, they are a collection of little things, each of which must be executed well. Missing one causes failure.

Doing the little things give us practice so that we can do better on more little things, and those things that are bigger. Making mistakes on little things are, very often, correctable by doing other little things.

Doing the little things focus on the details, and the devil is in the details.

What may seem like a little thing to us, may be a very big thing to someone else. Saying, “Good job,” or recognizing others may seem little to us but may be very important to others. A simple, “Thank You,” has a huge impact.

Unfortunately, we don’t pay the attention to the little things that we should. After all, we’re busy! We don’t have the time to do the little things. It’s always about details and often not very exciting, maybe even boring. Why send the thank you note, why update CRM, why take the time to do research. The little things are, often, just a pain in the ass.

We are time poor, so we prioritize, but our prioritization may be misguided. We may respond to the urgent, ignoring the important.

It’s amazing, the people who always stand out to me are the people that are great and gracious about doing the little things. I know I can count on them. And I hope they can count on me, but it’s about doing the little things.

It’s the little things that, often, bring us the greatest joy in what we do. We can reflect on the day, taking pleasure in the important, but little things we did. We can see that we are making progress, one step at a time, to our bigger goals.

I missed a commitment this week. It was a little thing. But it was important to the person I made the commitment to–even though it was a little thing to him. I felt bad about failing to meet my commitment and apologized to the colleague. We talked about it, I met the commitment, but was late.

We won’t be perfect, we will make mistakes. We will forget or overlook a lot of things. But we have to acknowledge these, perhaps forgive ourselves, move forward with the commitment to do better.

Our success is based on our ability to do the little things! It’s all the little things that enable us to accomplish the big things.

Are you paying attention and doing them?