Small Steps and Giant Leaps

Most achievements happen one unremarkable step at a time.

Not dramatic. Not inspiring. Not worthy of a motivational poster. Just you, showing up, doing the same thing, and repeating. Small steps every day in the right direction. Building momentum. Keeping going. And eventually, if you stay on track and keep moving, you get to where you want to be.

That’s the truth about most progress. It’s boring. It’s repetitive. It’s unglamorous. Yet it works.

But there’s another truth, and it’s one the self-help world doesn’t like talking about. Sometimes small steps aren’t enough. Sometimes you need a leap of faith.

The Small Steps Religion

The self-help world loves small steps. Tiny habits. Marginal gains. The 1% improvement philosophy. And they’re right, about 90% of the time.

James Clear’s Atomic Habits is built on this principle, that small, consistent actions compound over time into remarkable results. BJ Fogg’s Tiny Habits shows how starting ridiculously small makes lasting change possible. The research backs it up. Behavioural science consistently shows that sustainable change comes from small, repeated actions, not dramatic transformations.

We’ll cover marginal gains properly a little further into this section: one percent better, every day, compounding over time. It’s powerful. It’s proven. And for most people, most of the time, it’s the right approach.

I’m not arguing against small steps. I’m arguing against the idea that small steps are always enough. Because if you’ve been taking small steps for six months and you haven’t moved anywhere meaningful, you don’t have a discipline problem. You’ve got a strategy problem.

When Small Steps Get Stuck

Here’s what they don’t tell you about small steps. They assume you’re already on relatively level ground. They assume you’ve got some momentum. They assume you’re not trapped at the bottom of a pit or stuck behind a wall you’ve built around yourself.

Life is life. Seldom does anything go without a hitch, and taking small steps every day may never build the momentum to get you out of a dip, over a hurdle, or restarted when you’ve taken a hit.

I see patients who’ve been making small, incremental changes for months and then hit a plateau. They’re doing everything right. They’re consistent. They’re disciplined. And they’re stuck, because the wall in front of them at that time is higher than small steps alone can climb.

Someone in a toxic relationship doesn’t gradually edge towards the door over eighteen months. A person drowning in debt doesn’t fix the problem by saving fifty pence a week. Sometimes a situation demands a leap, not a small step.

If you’re reading this and thinking “that sounds like me,” it probably is. You’ve been doing the right things. You’ve been patient. You’ve been disciplined. And you’re frustrated because it doesn’t seem to be working. The problem isn’t your effort or consistency. The problem is that you’re applying the right tool to the wrong job. Maybe you’re using a teaspoon when you need a shovel.

The Leap of Faith

A leap of faith is when you take action knowing there’s no guarantee of success. Maybe all you’ve got is a picture in your mind of what you want to achieve and a gut feeling that you need to do it. It’s what you take when nothing is certain, when there’s no written rule that says you’ll succeed, and all you have is the knowledge that something, however scary, is probably better than what you have now.

Posting twenty job applications in one sitting. Telling everyone you know you’re going to do something, so you can’t quietly back out. Throwing all your junk food in the bin. Entering that marathon. Signing the lease. Making that one call. Handing in the notice.

These aren’t small steps. These are commitments so big that they create their own momentum. It’s the difference between edging into cold water and diving straight in: once you’re in, you’ve got to swim.

Research on the psychology of commitment, going back to Cialdini’s work on influence, shows that people who make large, public, irreversible commitments are significantly more likely to follow through than those who make small, private, reversible ones. There’s something about closing off the easy retreat that focuses the mind. When going back isn’t an option, you find a way forward. You always do.

How to Know Which You Need

So how do you know whether your situation calls for small steps or a giant leap? Here’s a rough guide, based on years of watching people navigate change.

You need small steps when you’ve already got momentum. When you’re on the right path and just need to keep going. When the change is about building habits, developing skills, or compounding effort over time. When patience and consistency are the missing ingredients, not courage or commitment.

You need a leap of faith when you’re stuck behind a wall that small steps can’t climb. When incremental improvement isn’t going to get you where you need to be because you’re fundamentally in the wrong place. When the situation is toxic, dangerous, or so deeply wrong that gradual change is just prolonging the problem. When you’ve been taking small steps for months and you haven’t moved an inch.

Most of the time, you need small steps. But occasionally you need the leap, and sometimes you need the leap to get you started, and then small steps to keep going after that.

The marathon is a perfect analogy. People say the first step is always the most difficult. I’d happily trade those first few thousand steps of a marathon for the last few thousand any day of the week. The first step is relatively easy. It’s the ten thousandth step that tests you. But you’ll never get to the ten thousandth step if you can’t get yourself to the starting line in the first place, and sometimes getting to the starting line requires that leap of faith: sending off the application, and trusting your training.

The Combination

There’s an old line from the Tao Te Ching that captures this well: confront the difficult while it’s still easy, and accomplish the great task through a series of small acts.

That’s the combination. Use the leap to break through the barrier. Then use small steps to build the life on the other side. You can’t sprint a marathon. You can’t run it in one giant leap. What you really need to do is turn up, pace yourself, and keep going. But sometimes, to get to the starting line, you need to leap over whatever’s been blocking the path.

The Hamster Wheel

Here’s the uncomfortable question you need to ask yourself. Are your small steps actually getting you somewhere, or are you running on a hamster wheel?

Because small steps can become a form of procrastination that looks impressively productive. “I’m working on it” sounds responsible. “I’m making incremental improvements” sounds mature and measured. But if those small steps aren’t getting you any closer to where you need to be, they’re just movement without progress. Activity without results. A hamster wheel with better branding.

You know the difference. You can feel it. When small steps are working, there’s a sense of forward motion, however slight. You can look back over a month and see that you’re in a different place than where you started. When small steps are just hamster-wheeling, you look back over six months and realise you’re having the same conversations, facing the same problems, and making the same plans you were making half a year ago.

If that’s you, it’s time to stop stepping and start leaping. Not because small steps are wrong. Because they’re wrong for where you are right now.

After the Leap

Nobody talks about what happens after the leap. The self-help world loves the dramatic moment of commitment, the before and after, the transformation montage. What they don’t show you is the Tuesday morning three weeks later when the excitement has worn off and you’re wondering what the hell you’ve done.

This is where small steps save you. The leap gets you across the gap. The small steps keep you from falling back into it. Your job after the leap is to calm down, steady yourself, find your footing, and start building the new habits, routines, and patterns that will sustain you for the long haul.

Small steps and giant leaps are both necessary, and both take courage, just different kinds. The courage to leap is dramatic and visible. The courage to keep stepping is often quiet and invisible. The skill is knowing which one you need right now, and being honest enough with yourself to admit it when you need that extra push.

So take a look at where you are. If you’re making progress, keep stepping. Trust the process. Trust the compound effect. You’re closer than you think, even when it doesn’t feel like it. But if you’ve been stepping in place, going through the motions of change without actually changing anything, it’s time to ask yourself the harder question.

What’s the big leap of commitment you’ve been avoiding? What’s the one thing you know you need to do that scares you enough to keep putting it off? Because that fear is probably the best compass you’ve got right now. Is it pointing directly at the thing that would make the biggest difference in your life?

Further reading

• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits. Avery.
• Fogg, B.J. (2019). Tiny Habits. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
• Cialdini, R.B. (2006). Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. Harper Business.
• Heath, C. & Heath, D. (2010). Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard. Broadway Books.
• Lao Tzu (trans. various). Tao Te Ching, ch. 63.