Transcriber: Jamie Zhang Reviewer: Taher Koja
I have a confession to make.
And please don't tell my teachers throughout my school years,
up until high school, I wasn't really motivated and
I didn't really strive to learn new things.
I go through the motions at school and I didn't make
an effort to go beyond my learning in the classroom.
I wasn’t a reader. I didn’t have a clear passion.
And quite frankly, no subject in school really interested me.
All this changed, however,
when the high school coordinator at my school step on
the list of clubs available to join when I was a freshman.
Now, I wasn't really the kind of person to be active in many school activities
other than sports, so I took a passing glance at the list, a small step.
For some reason, my eyes stopped on the model United Nations club.
I had remembered hearing that in this club,
one portrays a member of the United Nations and represents a country
on a range of topics through lively debate.
I thought to myself, Hey, I'm pretty good at debating with my older sister,
so why not try it? And it seemed to me like she was as different
as someone from another country. So I signed up. A small step.
This became the single best decision I've ever made.
And from that day, my life was changed.
Shortly after joining model event, we had our first conference.
And for those who don't know it,
conference is where Molly thanked clubs of different schools from around
the area or even sometimes from around the world,
come together to debate the topics given and represent their assigned countries.
Now, I didn't really speak that much at this conference.
Rather, I was munching on goldfish in the back,
but I already saw the potential.
First, I saw how smart some teenagers actually are
and how interesting they can be.
These high school students were around the same age as
I was discussing potential solutions to some of
the biggest problems facing our world.
When I had no idea where to begin and like I said,
when I was munching on goldfish in the back.
I mean, I barely knew how to improve my free throw percentage.
In the hallways during the break,
these students would talk about the most recent headlines in the news
and politics. That was their world.
And because of the number of little things , such as their passion,
their problem-solving and the realization that I too could be
a part of the world, I had found my passion, foreign policy and politics.
Now, I'm going to be honest.
It's not like I was going to stop playing sports,
but I realized this was way cooler.
I was so glad that I'd finally found something that
I was excited to get out of bed for every day.
But I was also freaking out thinking, where the heck do I start?
I mean, there's so many books, so many articles, so many videos,
so many blogs out there. And I wanted to understand them all,
but I knew I couldn't because of the other demands such as school.
It was hard to leap into this passion
because it can be hard to fully leap into anything in life.
I mean, who here in the audience has ever wanted to try something new
but felt overwhelmed or scared to take a leap of faith?
I remained scared to take a leap of faith for a while.
I had these large balls, but they seem too daunting
and become overwhelmed in weeks would go by without myself taking action
on my passion. So I thought about small steps.
Taking a small step in the right direction , any direction of improvement.
I realized that when it comes to a goal or a passion, it's not a sprint,
but rather a marathon or perhaps a collection of sprints.
One of the hardest things is making yourself show up to do a task
or start action because this takes courage and strength.
So you have to start with small goals and be consistent over time
and then adjust or increase them.
And this is what I like to call the art of small steps.
With this in mind, I decided that first I'm going to dive into
the history of foreign policy and politics.
That was all I was going to focus on.
Even though I wanted to learn everything all at once,
I forced myself to focus on one thing at a time.
I said to myself that each day I'm going to take a small step
and spend 30 minutes learning about the history of foreign policy
and politics, no matter what. This small step led to growth.
I started to learn about the many great thinkers who came before us
and thought about ways to organize society.
For example, people like Plato
and Socrates who had dialogues about justice, good and evil morals,
or whether the smartest person should rule,
or people like Adam Smith and John Locke,
who wrote about how a nation's wealth determines how they rule and
whether giving up certain freedoms to a government in exchange for
the protection of other freedoms is beneficial.
After this small step, I definitely wasn't ready to spring.
But I wanted to take another step in the right direction to continue my walk.
It was strange before I was so overwhelmed,
which had led to my motivation. But one small step made me yearn for another.
It became clear to me that
the best way to take action is by taking one small step at a time.
However, I met some challenges when wanting to read more books.
You know how when you're walking, sometimes you might step in some gum.
And this hinders your pace. Well, stepping gum, I did.
I lost sight of the small steps in
the large goals begin to creep back into my mind.
I thought to myself that I must read a book a week if
I ever wanted to obtain enough knowledge,
and this goal was fueled by the many books out there,
the amount of information, the amount of books overwhelmed me.
Like before I knew Reading would be beneficial,
and I was excited about this goal,
but I didn't have the actual time nor habit to do it.
So days and weeks would pass. I didn't even read at all.
We all step in gun sometimes or face challenges.
But when we step in gum or when we face challenges,
just remember to think about taking small steps.
Remember that the change you want might not come in a day,
might not come in a month, but it will come.
And like how in a marathon you pace yourself. So don't burn out.
You have to pace yourself with your goals. And this is what I did. I regrouped.
I removed the gum from my shoes.
I remembered the art of small steps and applied it to create a reading habit.
I created an everyday goal that was
so small that it was almost impossible not to complete.
I decided to read five pages every day for two weeks.
You might think this sounds very small and that at this rate,
it would take me a long time to finish a book. And you're right.
But that's the point. I mean, my goal so small,
making it easier for me to show up and actually read no matter what.
I would start knowing that all I had to read was five pages per day
and sometimes I would even go over five pages.
This is how I created a habit of showing up to read.
And now that I had this habit of showing up,
I made small increments to then 10 pages to then 20 pages to then 30 pages.
And from then on, I was running within a few months. I saw change.
I was reading more books than ever before.
I started implementing small steps in all regards of my life.
I made a goal of reading one news article a week and then made a website
and said to myself, I'm only going to upload a video once every few months.
Did I want to upload every week?
Heck, yeah, but I knew that this was unreasonable,
so I made it usable to achieve.
We humans tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves.
We tend to set really high goals and standards
for ourselves that often don't get achieved
or pursued is how demanding they are.
We then beat ourselves up for not achieving them and make little change,
leading to a never ending cycle.
Now, this is not to say that we shouldn't have high goals and aspirations
because I believe that in the long term,
your reach should always exceed your grasp.
But if you want to make change and efforts towards a goal,
you have to start small. You have to start by setting your goal
so small that you mastered the art of showing up.
You also have to make sure you know why you want to achieve the goal
and if it's worth it. For me,
my goals are fueled by my passion for foreign policy and politics.
But a goal can be fueled by anything,
and this can be done in relation to anything you do in life,
no matter how old you are.
For example, maybe you want to have better mindfulness and this is your fuel.
So instead of trying to become someone, meditate for an hour a day right away.
Start meditating for two minutes a day or one minute,
small steps are hard to believe in because we think that
the little things don't have an effect.
But if you commit to making a small step in whatever you do.
And then slowly increase them. You will see an immense change.
I know that I'm just a teenager and there's
a lot left in my marathon of life.
But I truly believe that it's never too late to regroup
and it's never too late to master the art of small steps. Thank you.