We can all appreciate that it’s sometimes difficult to accept change. In fact, millions of people all across the globe are genuinely fearful of it. That’s because they’ve built a daily lifestyle full of habits and activities where they feel happy – or at least comfortable. Those people have well-and-truly padlocked themselves into their comfort zone.
To a certain degree, comfort zones may allow you to avoid negative experience, emotions, and feelings. But, they don’t in any way promote growth and improvement. If you want to enhance your life, go through amazing experiences and discover true happiness, remaining in your comfort zone is not the answer.
Those people that can embrace and cope with change notice that they easily handle stressful situations. Their performance rises, relationships strengthen, and life improves because they can deal with the unknown. The great Charles Darwin once said:
It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.
However, those who seriously prosper are the ones that are excited at the mere thought of change. Why? Because by actively pushing the boundaries, you can shape life exactly how you want it and take control of your destiny.
Of course, even for individuals conditioned for change, substantial changes to your life are not to be taken lightly. Massive shifts to any area of your life can have significant repercussions. That’s why, before you make any changes, you need to have thoroughly thought through the implications and calculated the effects. Even then, it may not be easy to come to terms with the results.
Because of this, we recommend starting with tiny changes. Tiny changes still possess immense power but with a lower risk of adverse side effects. In this Guide, we’re providing you with 30 small changes known to transform lives. But, most importantly, they’re changes that can be implemented right away by anyone.
There’s power in tiny change
The reason why this Guide revolves around tiny changes is that it’s much more realistic to incorporate them into your life straight away. But, that doesn’t mean they lack impact. Let’s put it into perspective. Would you rather build up the courage to take a giant leap, which comes with a massive risk of falling even further backward, or would you rather take minimal steps that will guarantee progression?
Tiny changes could relate to any aspect of your life, as long as it involves striving for improvement. For instance, let’s say you’re very overweight and your doctor has told you that you’re at risk of chronic disease unless you shed the pounds. That means you’ll need to improve your diet. But, if you’re happy with what you eat & haven’t changed things for years, it’s going to seem overwhelming to revamp things completely.
Therefore, you can break things down into minimal changes that will eventually equate to the big change that you need. Swapping fried chicken for grilled chicken, swapping fries for sweet potato, swapping sausages for oats and swapping soda for water will all mount up in the long run.
The same goes for exercise. If you set out training for a half-marathon, trying to go from zero exercise to running 10 miles a day, the likelihood is that you’re going to give up before you’ve even started. So, it makes sense to start with 15 minutes of walking each day, and gradually bump up the intensity until you accomplish your goal. If you try to run before you can walk, you’ll struggle to make any changes whatsoever.
You owe it to yourself to continuously try and lead a better life. Whether it’s increasing your income, securing a better job, building more fulfilling relationships or generally just moving forward with your happiness, you need to be making a conscious effort each day. Like we’ve already touched on, a major change would be far too taxing on your mental system.
But, practicing tiny changes every day can ensure that you’re continually developing. That’s because they require barely any willpower. Anything that’s easy to do will meet with very little resistance from your body. Can you imagine replacing a bad habit with a positive one, but without experiencing any negative emotions or triggers at all?
There’s no denying that it will take some work, though. Nothing worth having comes without effort, eh? That means you will need to ignore your old habits, leverage the power of tiny changes and allow your new habits to shine. A great technique is to adopt the distraction method. When you’re trying to change, your mind will constantly search for its comfort zone, so you want completely to remove that temptation.
Let’s say you’re trying to refrain from drinking alcohol. If your fridge contains a 24-pack of beer and your favorite social activity is going to a bar, then obviously it’s going to be a challenge to make that change. Going in your fridge and chucking those 24 beers in the trash may be a bit farfetched. And it’s going to be difficult to cut the socializing to zero.
So, you can start by finding a balance and make incremental changes that will eventually lead to a big change. Maybe avoid the alcohol isle when you next go to the grocery store or try and find another social activity that doesn’t involve drinking alcohol. Eventually, you’ll find yourself pulling further and further away from it. The point we’re trying to make is that small changes quickly accumulate into something incredible.
There’s science behind tiny change
In a nutshell, everyone possesses an array of bad habits and an array of good habits. The bad side could contain things such as eating with your mouth open or drinking too much coffee. Whereas, the good side contains things that you’ve purposely forged to make a positive difference in your life.
But, of course, there’s a method to the madness, and it comes in the form of science. You see, when you first start doing something new, you’ll brain will treat it as a foreign object and will put up barriers to stop you from doing it. For instance, if you’re trying to eat healthy food, your mind will create urges to eat that leftover pizza that’s lying on the kitchen side.
To solidify the change, you need to transform it into a full habit. That means unceasingly staying loyal to that change despite the obstacles, hurdles, and challenges that come your way. Once you consistently perform that behavior for an extended period, your brain will welcome it with open arms, and it will run on autopilot. In other words, it will then be a habit.
Back in the 1950s, a famous plastic surgeon by the name of Dr. Maxwell Maltz conducted a study and found that it takes about three weeks for any change to become routine. He said:
These, and many other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to jell.
Although, the British Journal of General Practice found that for something to be a genuine habit, it’ll take an average of 66 days. During a study, they discovered that forming new habits from making changes consists of three phases:
The initiation phase which is where you choose a new behavior, the learning phase is where you start activating autopilot by consistently repeating it, and the stability phase is where it no longer requires much mental effort.
So, when you feel like quitting after the first couple of days, remember that science will have your back if you stick it out. But, as we’ve mentioned, the priority is not diving into major changes or trying to form full habits. The key is making tiny changes and building mini-habits to give yourself a better chance of developing something bigger.
Moreover, when it comes to tiny changes, there’s a very high reward-to-effort ratio. Your brain is pretty needy, and it responds well to success, reassurance, and affection. When you make small changes that are easily achievable, you can frequently feed success into your mind with limited effort. Contrastingly, big changes only offer one reward – at the end. Your brain recognizes that it’s better to overachieve with small changes than underachieve with big ones.
When you try and learn something for the first time, your brain expends a lot of energy trying to understand it. Why do you think so many people live by the adage of “practice makes perfect”? It’s all about being patient. Yes, you want to achieve your end goal as fast as possible, but that mindset tends to lead to disappointment, stress, and failure.
If you start with tiny changes, your mind needs less mental energy and can run on autopilot much faster. Over time, you can build on top of those until you not only reach your goal but even surpass it. For example, if you want to complete ten reps on the bench press in the gym with 100KG, it’s no good trying to go for that straight away. Begin at one rep and try to progress each week until you’re able to complete it comfortably.
Your brain tries to run as efficiently as possible and will try to allow you to perform new things as automatically as possible. The trouble is until you reach that stage, it requires a lot of perseverance, dedication, and effort. That is when you need to find the motivation from within, and from external sources, to stick with the small change you’ve made.
Tips for starting a tiny change
It’s no easy feat to make tiny changes or form mini-habits. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be these types of Guides helping people. But, changes are one-hundred-percent possible if you’re in the right mindset, there’s an adequate level of desire, and you remain consistent. You can begin making tiny changes right away. But to help we’re going to provide you some tips relating to creating mini-habits:
- Set up a trigger: Most people already have day-to-day habits that they do without even thinking twice. Now, when it comes to creating new mini-habits, you can leverage your existing ones to pave the way for new ones to cement in your mind.
There’s no denying that consistency is crucial, but triggers can help you retain that necessary level of consistency. Let’s say you have a cup of tea every afternoon; place the change you’re making in the middle of that action, such as reading one page of a book.
- Reward yourself: Never, ever forget to reward yourself for doing something positive, because that’s how your brain thrives. As humans, we find more motivation through pleasure. So, celebrate any success, no matter how small.
If it’s your goal to enhance your cardiovascular system through regular exercise, share it on social media when you’ve completed your first walk, so it’s there for all your friends and family to see. Keep bolstering that reward system at every accomplishment.
- Make it simple: We’ve already established that the best kind of change is small changes, but it also helps to make them incredibly simple too. The minimalistic approach goes a long way because it demands less effort and energy of your brain.
As tempting as it may be to go all out for your main goal right off the bat, you need to remember that you’re aiming for longevity. Tiny changes lead to long-term success with plenty of reward along the way. Focusing on one simple goal allows you to go all in.
- Figure out the motive: Before you even think about conjuring up a list of small changes that you want to make, you need to attach a motive to them. Without true motivation to succeed with a change, you’ll easily fall off the wagon.
Ask yourself why you want to make the change, what you’re going to gain from it and how it’s going to improve your life as a whole. Once you’ve established a motive, you’ll be able to rely on that when things get tough, and you feel like quitting.
- Acknowledge progress: Like with anything, it makes sense to be realistic. That is especially true when it comes to small changes. A lot of people dismiss minor change as being too easy, but understand that any progress, no matter how small, is fantastic.
Baby steps are what you’re exactly looking for, so you can put the least amount of pressure on your mind as possible. You want to make small changes, form new habits and improve your life, and the time it takes you to reach your end goal is irrelevant.
30 tiny changes
Right, we’ve reached the exciting part of the Guide; the area where you can draw inspiration, learn exceptional tiny changes and start enhancing your life. Before we get into them, we must stress that you don’t have to take on all of them, as that would defeat the purpose of making small changes.
Assess your life, highlight areas that you’d love to improve and apply some of the changes we cover to those areas. You can immediately implant any of these small changes into your life:
Wake Up Earlier
If you’re someone that wishes they could be more productive, then waking up earlier can help with that. When you wake up a few hours earlier than usual, you essentially give yourself more hours in the day to be more productive, look after your health and do the things you enjoy.
Numerous studies have identified waking up early each morning as something that leads to enhanced mental health. You need to ensure you continue to get eight hours of sleep each night but rising from your bed earlier can only be a great thing.
Don’t Waste Time Complaining
When you spend so much time searching for the negatives in every situation, you end up possessing a negative aura that massively reduces your happiness and the happiness of those around you. We know the world isn’t perfect, and there will be times when you can become frustrated, annoyed or angry.
But, there’s a huge difference between dwelling on negative things, and dealing with negative things with pure positivity and optimism. Instead of wasting precious time complaining, why not spend that time looking for positive aspects that will make you smile? That way, you aren’t “wasting” any time at all.
Create a Morning Routine
How many times do you hear people say, “I’m not a morning person”? You may be one of those people, but mornings can be the most important time of the day. It can set your day off on the right foot. Things that you do in the morning will have a substantial impact on whether you have a bad day or a wonderful day.
The easiest way to navigate mornings in the best possible way is to live by a routine. When you exactly know what you’ll be doing when you wake up, it makes the tiredness less noticeable. It may be having a fresh shower, eating scrumptious food and then playing with your pet dog.
Cook a Simple Dish
Everyone loves food, hence why it’s often referred to as the key to someone’s heart. The problem is, we don’t all have the culinary expertise to create our favorite meal without a lot of stress and hassle. If you don’t try, though, you’ll never be able to cook. So, even if you start out by making a delicious, simple Spanish omelet, you’ll be able to build confidence in the kitchen.
Gradually (with active learning and practice) you’ll build skills and increase the number of meals that you’re capable of making. Plus, cooking your meals from fresh ingredients is not only cheaper, but you exactly know what nutrients are going in your body. That way you are better able to stay on top of your weight.
Express Gratitude and Appreciation
Let’s face it, everyone enjoys receiving thanks, and it can be very demoralizing when you put tons of effort in without receiving any gratitude at the end of it. Whether it’s a loved one or a complete stranger, having someone tell you how much you’re appreciated can significantly boost happiness and mood.
But, on the flip side, it can also be incredibly rewarding if you’re the person that is expressing the gratitude and appreciation. Expressing gratitude for life and the fantastic things that bless you is a good idea too. Oh, and if you’re someone that believes in karma, you should be on the receiving end of gratitude if you consistently dish it out.
Walk to Work
Plastered on billboards around the world and continuously published on the television are calls for the human race to be more active. Why? Well, because regular exercise not only offers a plethora of physical and mental health benefits, but it also lowers the chance of chronic disease.
Even though just moving around could be called exercise, people often lack the motivation to burn calories. So, to bridge the gap between a strict exercise regime and just being more active, why not start by walking to work? If you must drive or use public transport, then ensure you’re walking as much of the journey as you can.
Write Down Your Goals
If you’re already a goal-obsessed person, or you want to become more driven, then jotting down your goals on your phone or a piece of paper can be useful. You could argue that you form goals in your mind, and that is correct. But, by writing your goals down in black-and-white, it’ll remind you to push for them, allow you to track progress and ensure your thoughts don’t get muddled up.
Many successful people rave about writing down goals. And, mainly it helps because it prevents goals from getting pushed to the back of your mind. In a way, it nullifies the attacking prowess of procrastination. Start today by listing some short, mid and long-term goals.
Turn Your Phone Off at Night
In this day and age, most people are entranced by their mobile phone all throughout the day. Whether it’s scrolling through social media, conducting various business calls or just texting their spouse, people are just addicted to their handheld device. That isn’t too much of a problem in the day, but when it comes to bedtime, it keeps people awake far too late.
The benefits of quality sleep are well known. But in a digital-orientated society, it’s hard for people to obtain the rest they need. To improve your sleep, improve your mood and improve your inner-happiness, turn your phone completely off at night. It’s a tiny change but one that has a big effect.
Start Drinking Water
Have you been trying to revamp your diet so that you can attain a healthier lifestyle, but find it too challenging to swap out all of the things you love? Well, you’re not the only one. But, finding a healthy, balanced diet doesn’t have to be done all at once, you can break it down into little milestones.
You can start by substituting sugary drinks with good old water. Not only does water do a better job of keeping you hydrated, but it also curbs hunger, boosts energy, flushes toxins out of your body and revitalizes your skin.
Add Vegetables to Every Meal
The fitness industry is stocked full of complicated diets, bizarre workout plans, and questionable guidance. The health industry overwhelms us with things to avoid as well as superfoods and things to prolong your life. But, when it comes down to it, it’s the simple things that will bolster your health the most.
So, instead of spending hours researching foods to enhance your health, it’s better to stick to the basics and add vegetables to every meal. They’re affordable, taste great and contain an abundance of nutrients, vitamins, and antioxidants.
Ask Open-Ended Questions
We often hear that the current generation doesn’t communicate well enough. For that reason emotions get bottled up, adverse situations occur needlessly, and lives get ruined. All it takes is a little effort to improve your soft skills, and you’ll be able to converse confidently and naturally with everyone you meet.
If you want to improve relationships, make new friends and be in a position to absorb more knowledge, why not start asking open-ended questions? You want to ask things that empower the other person to express themselves and elaborate on the topic. For instance – “What’s your take on American politics right now?”
Take an Hour for Your Favorite Hobby
We know that sometimes life can get hectic. There are days when your schedule is overflowing, you forget to eat, and you’re just counting down the hours till you can go to sleep. But, if you have too many days like that, you can quickly become exhausted and lose your passion for life.
It’s vital that you take breaks and allocate some time – maybe an hour – every few days to do something that you love to give you that buzz back. It could be going to watch a baseball game, it could be playing chess, or it could be baking a cake. Whatever it is, you need to make sure it puts a smile on your face.
Keep a Journal
If you’re someone that struggles to connect with your own emotions, find it difficult to express your creativity and are just generally forgetful, then keeping a journal can be a brilliant help. The art of writing will allow your creative side to flourish, your imagination to shine and your feelings to run wild.
When you keep a journal, it can be personalized, so no two journals will be the same. You may rigidly only cover goals related to your career, whereas another person may include everything that’s on their mind.
Have Dinner as a Family
Family means different things to different people. To some, it includes immediate family and extended relatives, but to others, it’s just them and their spouse. Regardless of how many people you include in your family, it’s essential to maintain and strengthen your bond with them and retain the loving atmosphere in your home.
As well as getting everyone to eat around the table each evening, you could also plan a family dinner once a month and ask all your family to attend. By paying particular attention to bonding with your family, you’ll have fun, gain happiness and reinforce good mental health.
Turn Off Notifications While Working
Humans will look for any excuse to procrastinate, especially if it’s a job that you despise. So, whenever you hear your phone beep with a text message, ring with a call or ding when you get an email, your brain is automatically programmed to become distracted. Now, when you are trying to be productive, that’s the last thing you want.
The simple solution to catapult your productivity level and reduce potential distractions is to completely turn off your notifications, both on your computer and mobile phone. Of course, you can plan breaks to stretch and check your notifications but try to limit the number of breaks you take.
Give Yourself Time to Respond to Invitations
Opportunities come in by the boat-load in the working environment. Some of the most common are: colleagues asking you for a drink after work, your boss asking you to take on additional tasks, and other companies offering you better jobs. On top of that, some people even have constant invitations from partners, friends, and family.
But, to prevent exhaustion, it’s vital that you spend your time wisely. You can achieve that by using the same generic response to invitations – “I’ll check my calendar.” That will give you time to evaluate any request and help stop you agreeing to something in the moment that later you regret. When you say yes or no based on your feelings and reason, you can live life on your terms.
Tell Your Loved Ones That You Love Them
Life is precious, right? We’re all blessed with a family, and some are even lucky enough to find true love and create a family of their own. But, despite feeling that love deep down in your heart, very few people express that love on a regular basis.
If you make a conscious effort to tell your loved ones that you love them every single day, you’ll be able to strengthen that bond, forge tighter relationships and create a more positive, fulfilling atmosphere when around them. It takes two seconds to voice your love, but it packs a meaty, long-lasting impact.
Handle Emotions with Silence
No matter who you are, life isn’t all roses and sunshine. Undoubtedly, there will be times when situations get the better of you and negative emotions race around your body. It could be anger, disappointment or frustration. Consequently, people then react purely on emotions rather than thinking things through, which can lead to regrets.
Rather than instantly reacting, try to be more patient. The difference is colossal. Giving yourself enough to think and calm down will allow you to reply logically with those negative emotions removed.
Walk Your Block with a Litter Bag
You may think it’s not your duty to clean up your neighborhood, but no-one ever said it wasn’t allowed. If you want to make your community a nicer place to live, then why not walk your block with a little bag once a week?
You see, good deeds are very rewarding and make you feel awesome about yourself. But, they also help to unite the community and build the camaraderie. Plus, if someone else spots you are putting the effort in to keep the streets clean, it may encourage them to do the same. When people take the lead and make a positive difference, it’s very infectious.
Create a Savings Account
All across the world, people are facing the daily struggle of financial hardship. Far too many people find it difficult to make ends meet, which is the catalyst for depression, anxiety and lack of happiness. Now, of course, money can’t buy happiness, but it can certainly allow you to avoid plenty of adverse situations and feelings. It can just make life easier.
A great way to improve your financial situation and give you a sense of security is to open up a savings account. Each week just put whatever you can afford into that savings account and never take any out of it. Over time, it will grow and grow, and grow until you have enough money to fall back on if things ever did go south.
Say Hello to Your Neighbors
Similar to the concept of telling your loved ones that you love them, you should also go out of your way to greet your neighbors. Just a simple “hello,” “hi,” or “how are you?” would suffice. Not only does it put smiles on people’s faces, but it also contributes towards a friendlier community vibe.
Over time, it could eventually lead to building strong friendships, which is great if you live right beside those people. If you or they are ever in need, you know you can count on each other for help. Friendliness and effort provide the foundation for relationships to form, remember that.
Try to Solve a Rubik’s Cube
If you want to attempt to increase your IQ, then a wonderful way to build intelligence is by attempting the alleged world’s hardest puzzle – the Rubik’s cube. It could be a small addition to your day. When you’re on your way to work, eating your breakfast or find a spare couple of minutes on the evening, have a few attempts at solving the puzzle.
The key to this one is not to get carried away, though. You need to remember that it is supposed to be a small change, so limit the number of attempts you have or put a timeframe of a few minutes on each session.
Open Up a College Fund for Your Children
This tiny change will only directly apply to those that have children, but you can also use it as a reference if you’re planning to start a family in the future. It’s no secret that education is the most important developmental phase in your life, but it’s something that doesn’t come cheap either.
Therefore, if you want to give your children the best chance of success without the debt, hassle, and stress, then open up a college fund. You can put as much as you can afford into it each month, as every contribution will go a long way when it comes to it.
Learn a New Word in a Different language
The beautiful thing about our planet is that it’s divided into over a hundred countries, and the billions of people on Earth communicate in an endless number of different languages. Long story short, it’s incredibly diverse. There are probably dozens of languages you could name, but there are thousands in the world. Wouldn’t it be awesome to learn something about them?
Now, we’re not going to tell you to learn how to speak fluently in another language, because that would be overwhelming. But, just learning one new word every so often can increase your knowledge base massively. We’ll give you one to start off – “Privet” is “Hi” in the Russian language.
Ask a Customer to Assess Your Service
Plenty of businesses pay so much attention to customer service that they forget to focus on the customer experience. Yes, having excellent customer service is vital when problems arise, but having a great customer experience will help prevent problems from ever occurring. Plus, superior customer experience will sell your business a lot better and result in more referrals.
A clever way to make the small change of increasing customer experience is by spontaneously asking a customer to assess your service. By finding out what they like and dislike about your service, you can hone the way you go about your business.
Organize the Drawer in Your Desk
Being disorganized is one of the biggest reasons why people fail to reach their productivity potential. Regardless of how busy or cluttered your desk currently is, you can start by decluttering certain sections of it. If you begin with the drawer, you’ll probably almost instantly find things that can either be chucked in the trash or organized properly.
Once you’ve completed the drawer, you can then move on to other areas. By just having everything you need around you, and nothing more, you can maximize your productivity and get more work done throughout the day. Not only will you feel better without the clutter, but you won’t have to trawl through a mound of files to find something
Organize Your Computer Files
With so much technology in existence nowadays, it’s no surprise that we rarely write things down, and computers are almost overused. However, just because you haven’t got as much written down doesn’t mean you don’t do any filing. Computers can quickly become clogged with data and files. Once stored many of those files never see the light of day again and are just creating clutter. Rid yourself of the hoarder mentality and start clearing or organizing some of the data.
Spend 5 minutes every week just sorting through your files, determining what you need and what you can bin. For everything that you need, make sure you create designated folders so that they’re easily accessible further down the line.
Go Out for Food
It’s important to establish a healthy diet and exercise regime, but it’s also okay to let yourself live once in a while. Whether it’s on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis, try to organize a get together with your friends or family to eat at a lovely restaurant. When you make this a habit the happiness that you once achieved from restaurant outings may start to wane a little.
But, if you rotate the restaurants you eat at, you’ll be able to put a smile on your face every time. Plus, it’s not always about the food, it’s also about the company. If loved ones eating delicious food surround you, you’re bound to find more happiness.
Floss One Tooth
Taking care of your teeth is important. Not only for a nice appearance but also to ensure your teeth remain as healthy as possible. The common consensus is that you need to brush your teeth morning and night for two minutes each time. Yes, that should be a staple in your daily routine, but there’s no harm in taking additional measures.
If you’ve never flossed your teeth in your life, then it can be difficult to remember to do it. Even if you do remember, some people can’t find the motivation to do it. To combat that, start by flossing one tooth a day, and gradually increase the number of teeth until it becomes a habit to floss the whole set.
Do Pull Ups and Push Ups
For some people, keeping fit stretches much further than just raising the heart rate and trying to bolster their cardiovascular system. For some people, fitness is about developing their muscles – their physique – and mental health as much as it is strengthening their heart. But, not everyone has the knowledge or confidence to begin a weight training program.
Luckily, though, you don’t need to attend a public gym to build muscle. Nor do you need to turn into a professional bodybuilder. Begin your journey by doing 30 seconds of pull-ups and pushups in the comfort of your own home. Each week you can add to the time limit and incorporate new exercises.
Conclusion
There you have it, 30 tiny changes that can – and will – transform your life. By now, you should have all the necessary weapons in your armory to start turning negatives into positives, weaknesses into strengths and dissatisfaction with life into happiness. But, as we’ve already stressed, all of the information in this Guide is useless if you don’t take action.
It’s you, deciding that you want to change, sticking with it and pushing for more that will transform your life. Without a doubt, the information and ideas listed in this Guide are unrivaled and possess a lot of power if you use them. You always need to remember that progress is progress, no matter how small.
If you’re continuously trying and are taking baby steps towards your ultimate goal, then that’s perfect. It’s the small changes in life that are the most effective because they allow you to improve and develop without requiring a ton of mental energy. That means you can pour all of your efforts into the small changes and get the rewards in a very short space of time. Compare that to huge changes that bombard your brain and increase the risk of failure.
When it comes to choosing the small changes in your life, the decision lies in your own hands. It’s your responsibility to assess your life and daily routine and pick out areas that could be improved. It’s not a bad idea to seek the opinions of those closest to you, as an outside perspective may throw up fresh concepts, but you must take the brunt of the responsibility.