The Power of Micro-Achievements

LISTEN TO THIS BLOG POST:

The concept of micro-achievements focuses on the cumulative impact of small, consistently completed tasks on overall personal and professional development. This approach is particularly powerful because it taps into the psychological principle that achieving even minor goals can provide a substantial motivational boost in your mental health, creating a positive feedback loop that propels further successes for you.

Psychological Foundations

Micro-achievements are grounded in psychological theories like behaviorism, which emphasizes the power of incremental learning and reinforcement.

When you recognize that you have completed a micro-task, no matter how small, it triggers the release of dopamine, a neurotransmitter associated with feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. This release encourages repeated behavior, helping you to establish and reinforce new habits.

Long-term Impacts

Over time, these micro-achievements add up, leading to quick substantial improvements and changes in you and your engrained patterns.  They can significantly improve your health, knowledge, productivity, and overall well-being. More importantly, as these small tasks become habits, they require less effort to maintain, freeing you up to pursue other goals.

Examples of Micro-Achievements

• Health and Fitness: Committing to do just five push-ups each morning, using the stairs instead of the elevator every other day, choosing a salad over fast food for lunch once a week.
• Learning and Personal Development: Reading one article a day on a topic of interest, completing one lesson in a professional development course or professional certification course.  Watching one video each day on a personal self-help topic and writing one page in a journal each day.
• Work and Productivity: Accomplishing one task every 15-20 minutes without any interruptions or any multi-processing.  Set aside 15-20 minute blocks of time to just complete one micro-task such as just answer emails, voice mails, etc. and nothing else.

Micro-Achievement Techniques:

1. Julia Cameron in her book, The Artist’s Way, includes a micro-achievement technique called the “Morning Pages” that includes “writing down three pages of your stream-of-consciousness thoughts first thing in each morning for a month to boost your creativity and develop your nurture your own self and spark inspiration.“

For example, if you use the “Morning Pages” to write a book, writing just three pages a day for thirty days gives you ninety pages of material at the end of just one month.

I used the “Morning Pages” technique to write my own award-winning and best-selling book, The Plastic Effect: How Urban Legends Influence the Use and Misuse of Credit Cards. I wrote my three Morning Pages each morning on a commuter train as I commuted from my home into the City of Chicago into my law office on LaSalle Street.

2. Gary Keller, the Founder and Executive Chairman of Keller Williams Real-Estate and Jay Papasan in their book, The One Thing, include a micro-achievement technique called “The One Thing” that includes “identifying and addressing the most powerful and impactful micro-task each day such that doing this micro-task will make all other micro-tasks easier or even unnecessary.”  This technique does not allow multi-tasking because multi-tasking decreases focus, increases errors, and creates stress and feelings of being overwhelmed. 

For example, if you use “The One Thing” in your personal life, you learn how to prioritize your micro-tasks, to enhance your focus, accomplish key objectives to balance your own personal growth.

Implementing Micro-Achievements in Your Daily Life

To effectively utilize micro-achievements in your daily life:

1. Set Clear, Achievable Micro-Achievements:  Create a very specific and precise list of the micro-achievements you are going to work with each day. Then review your list to ensure that your micro-achievements are very specific (e.g., one page, one exercise, one diet change, etc.) and realistically attainable within a very short time period (e.g., one hour, one day, etc.).
2. Track Your Progress: Keep a journal or using a digital diary tool on your smart phone or tablet to track all of your micro-achievements when you complete them. Visually move micro-tasks from “to-do” list to “done” list. Tracking your successes provides you with visual proof of your progress and reinforces micro-achievement behavior in your own life.
3. Celebrate Your Successes: Recognizing and rewarding yourself for achieving these micro-achievements can reinforce the behavior and boost motivation.  Set up a reward system for yourself where you treat yourself to something special after accomplishing a certain number of micro-achievements successes.

By focusing on micro-achievements, you can create to create a significant positive impact and a new trajectory in your own life.

Out There on the Edge of Everything®…

Stephen Lesavich, PhD

Copyright © 2025 by Stephen Lesavich, PhD.  All rights reserved.

Certified solution-focused life coach and experienced business coach.

#microachivement #microgoals #success #selfhelp #motivation #personalgrowth

#business #businesscoach #lifecoach #lesavich