Unlocking Success: Harnessing the Power of Small Steps to Achieve Monumental Goals

Anita, the Underdog

Anita Roddick's story is another great tale of an underdog achieving. Roddick was born in England with three other siblings and worked after school and on weekends at their family restaurant. She got married in 1970 and, early in their marriage, Anita and her husband ran a bed-and-breakfast lodging combined with a health food restaurant. When her husband wanted to pursue a lifelong dream of riding his horse from Argentina to New York, she began to cook moisturizers in her Brighton, England, home to support her children financially. She also agreed to sell their restaurant in order to finance his trip. Anita was supportive of her husband's goal and admired his determination even with the new financial stress that it brought upon their family.

Anita had experience traveling around the world before she got married and during that time observed people with magnificent skin who were rubbing their bodies with cocoa butter.

It opened up her mind to unconventional body care, which became an interest to her. Roddick opened her first Body Shop (a retail store for her signature cosmetic line) without expectations of getting wealthy. She wanted to create a cosmetic line that would use natural ingredients and appeal to consumers who care about the environment. Rather than succumbing to vanity and the marketing strategies of the large cosmetic companies at the time, she utilized low-key marketing, social activism, and consumer education to take The Body Shop from a small-scale company to a massive one.

At this writing, The Body Shop is recognized as having helped shape the playbook for the multi-billion, global cosmetic industry. If it isn't obvious, she was a massive underdog. She was a female entrepreneur in a situation where she had to sell products to survive and, at the same time, she was starting a new business in an industry that already had giants with big pockets.

We are all just small steps away from building our own paths.

The Value of Taking The First Step

One of my biggest regrets is skipping a soccer tryout in 7th grade because I was intimidated. I never made it, but I never tried out, and that guaranteed my fate. Sounds small, but it’s fortunately, one of my few regrets. If you haven't explored your regrets, it's a good exercise to perform so we can learn from it.

Many leaders are afraid to start something new or take the first step because of:

-resistance to change

-pressure to maintain the status quo

-fear of failure

-lack of experience

While our worries and doubts are valid, we can’t let them stop us from taking action. If you don’t give up, you are giving yourself a chance to succeed. I won’t let fear or intimidation stop me from starting or trying my best. Don’t let it stop you either.

Invest Into Yourself (and Others) By Doing Small Acts of Kindness

Once in a while, I try to write notes to my girls for lunch. They say they keep them all and sometimes discuss them with their friends. I have seen some of these notes on their dressers or desk... but the toys and expensive items we have bought are nowhere to be found. I was initially surprised but now I know the power of a note.

Today, write a handwritten note for someone in your life. This can be a family member, a friend, or someone at work who could use this small act of kindness. You can even write a note/ affirmation for yourself and stick it somewhere that you can keep bumping into it (like the bathroom mirror). Spending a small amount of time on a note can last forever, can help you reflect and process the message before writing it, and can impact and uplift the people who receive it. How incredible is that?

Simple actions can have the most profound effect on your life.