What is the smallest change that can positively shift everything for you?

I am writing this blog with a mug of mint tea. A hot drink accompaniment to my work is not a novel thing. The mug is and isn’t. The mug’s title is ‘The many faces of the Swedish moose’. Below the many expressive moose heads adorning the mug are the emotions the moose is representing in English and Swedish. It is a familiar mug. It was bought by my partner on a trip to Sweden a decade ago, it has been in our cupboard for 4 years, I have served drinks in it countless times. I have never used nor drunk from it myself. 

Until now. 

It is the boldest foray into an effort to mix up the mugs we use at home. 

It turns out routine has assigned a mug for three daily drinks roles: a morning coffee mug, a rest of the day hot drinks mug, and an evening hot drink mug. The same is true for my partner, who decided that it was time to mix it up.

The impact (and the point of this mug musing) has been greater than expected. 

I notice appreciating my first coffee in a different mug more. The lip is thinner and in noticing that I also notice my first slurp far more than in my usual morning coffee mug. In fact, I enjoy my coffee so much I use the same mug the following day. 

In fact every hot drink feels a bit more novel. I make it not simply because I am between tasks or it is the familiar hot drink time that has become my routine. 

And in that novelty other things feel possible. I notice having a new idea for a writing project for example. While hard to claim this new idea as a direct cause (where do ideas come from anyway?) it is definitely part of a greater sense of possibility: If I can mix up my mugs, what else can I mix up? What may that create? 

If I appreciate a thing I do so habitually a bit more, like drink hot drinks, what else am I noticing with a heightened state of appreciation? 

All this is to ask, what are the smallest changes, even temporary, that can create positive shifts for us?

While I cannot point to the specific science it seems widely accepted (I have heard it from enough sources) that the brain craves novelty. What positive novelty can we create for the brain in tiny possible changes? I say positive because I’m aware of all the times I check the rugby news hunting for novelty and feeling a little empty inside if I do it too often. 

More broadly, I’ve worked with lots of people who are stuck, and have found that often the thing that helps shift that stuckness is shifting something somewhere else. Like the idea attributed to Einstein that the same mind that sees a problem isn’t the one that will solve it. 

Equally, what are all the things that feel important in their consistency? 

We may not know unless we tweak them or experiment, but I do notice there are parts of my morning routine that if I changed would make things feel harder rather than better, such as if I changed my regular running route. 

And writing that I wonder, how will I actually know until I try? Most likely I could run further or faster with a different route, again, more becomes possible with that small shift. 

Significantly with small changes, there is often far less at stake, while we are also practising experimentation which is at the heart of learning.

What bigger shifts may become possible from the smallest tweaks or changes to how we do things?

What may we appreciate more by making a tiny change to something?

What would it be if we all had just a little more appreciation for the things we can so easily miss in the routine of everyday?