Kaizen For Self Improvement

What does Kaizen, a Japanese method has the production quality and efficiency of the industry to do with self improvement? Can it be adapted to work yourself? What is it really?

It began with the "continuous improvement" theories of efficiency expert W. Edwards Deming in the 30s and 40s. After the war, were the ideas of the Japanese picked up and developed into "Kaizen," a method for creating quality products efficiently through many small and continuousChanges. This is perfect for themselves - to improve, as Robert Maurer explains in his book "One Small Step Change Your Life"

"Your brain is programmed to resist the change, but in small steps, effectively you wire your nervous system so that the procedure is as follows:

* Unstick of creative block.

* Avoidance of the fight or flight response.

* Creates new connections between nerve cells in the brain so thet entusiastically takes over the process of change andThey quickly progress to your destination. "

Kaizen is an alternative for those who have a hard time facing major changes, such as smoking at once. For something like that would be the Kaizen way to stop smoking in the car, like the first small step. Then you could switch to a brand with less nicotine, smoking in the house, and so on.

An important technique used in kaizen to ask: "small issues." In factories this meant no more questions like "What do you want to doto improve corporate profits this year? "This solves only more fear than creative ideas. A better question would be:" What could we make small changes in your department in order to reduce costs (or improve quality)? "This approach proved to be much more productive.

For the purpose of improving themselves, this means asking small suggestive questions of yourself, like, "What can I do to free five minutes for my meditation?" or "What small change could I make if Iwanted to improve my relationships today? "Small questions tend to fear and intimidation to dispel that come with frontally before the whole question.

Small issues with small, comfortable changes is the first important principle of kaizen. The second is to make the process of continued on. Imagine where you if you had consciously made a small change in your life every week would be in the last few years. Better yet, imagine where you will be a few years from now, when you startthe process today.

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step." - Lao Tzu

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