202.One Step, One Win: How Small Moves Fuel Big Success

One foot in front of another - that's the secret to lasting success. 

Feeling overwhelmed by your goals? Learn how to break them down into manageable steps and celebrate every small win

Join Dr. Adrienne Youdim in this powerful episode of Health Bite as she shares inspiring stories and practical wisdom about achieving long-term goals through perseverance and small, consistent actions.

Discover why "overnight success" is often years in the making and how you can harness the power of small, consistent actions to create lasting change.

What You'll Learn From This Episode:

• The science behind grit and why it's the #1 predictor of success
• How to break down overwhelming goals into manageable daily actions
• Why self-compassion is crucial for maintaining long-term motivation
• Real strategies for celebrating small wins and building momentum
• The importance of accepting where you are while working toward where you want to be

"— just one thing, one decision that is better today than yesterday. And doing that one thing again and again and again, one day after another, one foot in front of the other, one step at a time." --- Dr. Adrienne Youdim

People and Resources Mentioned:

• Angela Duckworth -The Power of Grit and Perseverance
• Corrine Crabtree - Transform Your Body with No BS Weight Loss:10lbs Off of Your Weight Without Calorie Counting, Fasting, or Off Limit Food 
• Rancho La Puerta - https://rancholapuerta.com/ 

Special Invite: Ready to Shift from Reactivity to Resilience?

Learn to manage your reactivity. Take control, choose your response, and build lasting resilience towards more intention in your life.

Spaces are limited—reserve your spot now!

• Manage stress effectively
• Boost resilience and focus
• Improve relationships
• Live with intention

Through interactive sessions, master techniques like meditation, mindful movement, and therapeutic drawing. Perfect for busy professionals, parents, or anyone facing chronic stress.

No experience needed—just a desire to thrive.

Connect with Dr. Adrienne Youdim

• Website: https://dradrienneyoudim.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dradrienneyoudim/

Transcript

I think I have shared with you that there are themes that come up with my patients and clients. Maybe it's my own headspace and that determines what I pick up on or maybe the universe is bringing me a message or a lesson thru my patients, but regardless, I seem to find a theme of the week thru my patients. 

This week’s theme was about the perseverance needed to achieve our goals and in my patient's case it was to stay in the game with her weight loss journey in order to achieve long term success in her health and well being. But what I love about my work is that While these stories unravel in my office and therefore usually revolve around patients' weight loss or health journey, their wisdom can be extrapolated to our greater lives. There is wisdom we can relate to our personal, professional and relational lives. 

Welcome to HealthBite, the podcast where I offer small actionable bites to greater physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing. 

I'm your host Dr Adrienne Youdim. I am triple board certified an internist, obesity medicine and physician nutrition specialist and I have learned in working with patients and clients for nearly 20 years, that good nutrition is not just about the food that you eat, but all the ways in which we can nourish ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally. Together we will explore the intersection of science, nutrition, health and wellbeing in the pursuit of living well. These quick bites will leave you feeling motivated, empowered and inspired.

I saw a patient in the office this week that I have worked with for several years. The first time we met was before the pandemic. SHe had a long history of excess weight and needed or wanted to lose 100 to reach the range of healthy weight for her body. After working together for about 6 months, she had lost 40 pounds and then she disappeared.That happens sometimes. Sometimes I never know what happened or why, but in this case 

She returned a few years later. This round we continued to work together for over a year and on this weeks visit she had reached the 100 pound mark. SHe had lost 100 pounds.

Im always curious what clicks for people. So I asked her What was different this time around?

One foot in front of another she answered, i just kept going, one step at a time, one day at a time. NOt sexy right but so true. So often patients want to know what is the magic, the answer to this life long problem. Or they come in thinking that these new drugs are the magic, and I want to tell you that while they are great drugs, I prescribe them, for many many people they are not magic. People still need to do hard work and they need to persevere - meaning be in it for the long haul, step by step, one foot in front of another.

Her comment made me think of a podcast interview I did with a weight loss coach who herself had lost over a hundred pounds. I remembered the mantra she shared that was the secret to her success, what is ONE thing I can i do today better than i did yesterday, just one thing. And when we do that one thing, cook a wholesome meal, get off the couch and go for a walk, wake up early and head to the gym, pass by the pantry without mindlessly snacking. Just one thing. Just one decision that is better than yesterday, done again and again. One step at a time and one foot in front of the other.

What a practical self compassionate not to mention effective approach. Did I mention that she has effectively lost over a hundred pounds and kept it off for nearly a decade.

And that is the point that I want to make today. That any successful effort requires perseverance, it requires resilience, it requires patience, it requires grit. And massive change is never how it appears on the outside. You see a friend you haven't seen for a year and she has lost 30 pounds, it may appear all of a sudden to you, but you don't know what she did for 365 days to get to that point. You see someones company flourishing and you think wow, how did that just happen. Chances are it did not just happen, and like a friend of mine who is now super successful with celebrity clients, he worked for 10 years towards this dream without making a single penny, and btw, he had a wife and kids who were supporting him. Most people did not see the painstaining work he did one day at a time, one step at a time. 

Almost as if to highlight this point, I stumbled upon a ted talk by Angela Duckworth, psychologist and author of the book Grit. In her tedx she shares her research that showed the number one predictor of success was not intelligence, not good looks, not health but grit. She goes on to say

“Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Grit is having stamina. Grit is sticking with your future, day in, day out, not just for the week, not just for the month, but for years, and working really hard to make that future a reality. Grit is living life like it's a marathon, not a sprint.”

And I am going to add to this to say, that in order to have Grit, in order to have perseverance and to show up day after day, putting one foot in front of the other, you need something else too, and that something is self compassion. I know I talk about this alot, and I know that it makes many of you roll your eyes., but I am telling you that without self compassion, you cannot have grit and you are much more likely to sabotage your own success. 

So let me share the story of another patient, who had a very different outcome. Patient B, lets call her Sherry, also had a big weight loss goal. And after making changes to her life and being on medication, she had “only” lost around 20 pounds over 6 months. Now I say only because that was how she defined it, only, she was so upset that she only lost 20 pounds expecting to lose much more especially because she was taking these magic drugs. but can we pause for a minute and focus on the fact that 20 pounds by any outsiders view is pretty darn good. Right? And that if we stayed the course, she could potentially lose 40 pounds in the year, right. Maybe it is not what she imagined or wanted but again pretty darn good. 

Every visit she would return dejected, mad at herself, frustrated. She couldnt get on board with small steps, one foot in front of another, one thing better than yesterday. Most importantly, she could not get on board with self compassion and self acceptance with where she was at. This was her bodys rhythm and instead of offering herself love and gratitude for the work it required to get her here, she bagerred herself. And guess what happened, she got too frustrated with herself, stopped coming in, and regained the weight. 

First of all, absolutely zero judgment. We have all been there. But THere are some important lessons to highlight that perhaps can help us navigate our goals, together. Maybe for you the goal is weight loss, but maybe it is something else. For me it is this new venture of speaking. As many of you know I feel into this work of speaking kind of serendipitously and I absolutely love it. I give workshops regularly at Rancho la Puerta and last week I spoke for Bank of America. But it is a new venture and I do get frustrated with myself, frustrated with being at the “at the bottom of the totem poll” because I am trying to build something new and I am going to have to have grit- perseverance, patience, to do the work, one step at a time, one foot in front of the other with self acceptance and self compassion. What is the one thing that you are trying to accomplish? Maybe it is a professional goal, maybe it is a home renovation, maybe it is parenting a special needs child or any child for that matter? Were do you need to summon perseverance and self compassion in your life?

Bring that thing to mind while I offer my 2 cents. 

1. When a goal feels too big or insurmountable. I want you to pause and take a deep breath. How does that overwhelm get in the way of our success. Can you get past the grandiosity of the goal and create some distance from the outcome? I know that might seem a little counterintuitive, like achieve the goal by not thinking about the goal, but trust me a little bit of faith and surrender can go aloing way. So bring that goal to mind, take a deep breath, relax into your body and say i surrender
2. Small steps and small wins. Every big goal has little steps, the first 5 pounds, the first page of your rough draft, the first cold call for a keynote address. Break up the big insurmountable goal into little steps AND (and this is a critical part) celebrate them
3. Do just one thing better than yesterday. This speaks to the perfectionism that can sabotage our success… We seem to think that perfect is the means to the end, it is not. We do not need to be perfect, we just need to be better. And btw- perfect is an allusion and if you try and reach it you are setting yourself up for failure
4. Last- embrace self acceptance and self compassion. Accept yourself for who you are right now, for where you are right now. This is a must, not only because it is the nice thing to do, but it is the effective thing to do. There is so much data that has shown self acceptance is critical to successful habit change and to goal attainment. You cannot get to where you want to be by hating who you are and where you are right now. 

(Breathe)

I dont know about you but I needed this episode 

Sending you so much love out there and I look forward to seeing you again next week on HealthBite.