Kaizen Revealed

Ever since I first heard the concept, I’ve been fascinated with Kaizen.

What It Means

Kaizen is a Japanese principle for creating change. Kai in Japanese means “change” or “to correct” and Zen means “good”. So Kaizen is a way of creating continuous good change, in personal life and in organizations.

How Kaizen Has Been Applied

It’s been used for decades at Toyota (where Lexus vehicles are also manufactured), which has earned Toyota and Lexus an excellent reputation for producing some of the best built cars in the world.

At Toyota, Kaizen is used to improve all aspects of producing vehicles. Any person on the production line can stop production if there’s a tiny change that can be made to improve the speed or efficiency of car-making.

In that environment, employees are encouraged to talk about what they see as problems, and they’re never penalized for pointing out what’s not working. They’re encouraged to offer their ideas on how the process can be improved, even if the change is tiny.

Think of it this way: 100 tiny changes add up over time.

Kaizen vs. Innovation

Kaizen means making tiny incremental changes over time, which is the opposite of innovation–which means making giant forward leaps.

Both Kaizen and innovation are necessary for change.

The difference between the human reaction to Kaizen as opposed to innovation is huge. There’s much less resistance to Kaizen, because each change is so minute. Innovation, however, causes radical change which can be difficult for humans to embrace and which can cause upsets in an organization. Radical change means radical reactions.

Kaizen & Everyday Living

So what’s the point of me talking about this anyway? This blog is about making your life better, so you can live a destiny that creates a legacy and shapes global destiny.

So how does Kaizen make your life better?

Glad you asked.

The reason Kaizen is so powerful for creating change in everyday living is because the changes that Kaizen calls for are so tiny that your brain offers zero resistance.

I don’t know about you, but for me that’s huge. Every time I want to make a change, no matter how beneficial I know the change will be, there’s internal resistance to it. Since I’ve never done the new thing before, I’m probably going to have challenges.

As a change agent and catalyst for transformation, I’m always looking for ways to create change that are pain-free and effective that I can implement in my life and that I can share.

Practicing Kaizen

A teacher of Kaizen told a group of people who wanted to start meditating to start with one minute per day.

Meditate for one minute per day? What in Sam Hill will that accomplish? Sounds like it would have no effect whatsoever, but the opposite is actually true…

If you tell yourself you’re going to begin meditating for 20 or even 30 minutes every day, your brain will offer resistance. If you’re not meditating now, there’s a reason why. You’ve got internal resistance to doing it, otherwise, you’d be doing it.

When you tell yourself that you’re going to wake up in the morning, sit up in bed and meditate for one minute before you get out of bed, your brain offers no resistance. It doesn’t even care.

The magic happens when you CONSISTENTLY meditate for one minute per day.

Your brain pays more attention to the consistency of your actions than it does to the duration (how long you sustain) the action.

Your brain will notice, after about 10 days, that you’ve been waking up every morning and meditating for one minute. After 21 days, it becomes a habit.

And the beautiful thing is, one day, you’re going to forget to stop at just one minute of meditating.

You’re going to meditate for two minutes.

Then two minutes turns into 3.

The next thing you know, you’re meditating for 5 minutes.

Yeah, you get my drift, you’re on a roll now baby!

You’re unstoppable, and your brain knows it.

And it all happened with zero resistance.

What Kaizen has to do with you is that you can use it, starting today, to make tiny incremental changes in your life that add up over time. Here are some examples of how Kaizen has been used for practical, everyday purposes:

• Use Kaizen to quit smoking. When researchers used Kaizen to help folks stop smoking, it was too effective to ignore. The only thing smokers were told to do was to pause for 10 seconds before lighting up whenever they wanted a cigarette. Of course, the smokers never told themselves they were quitting smoking. That would be way too painful. Anytime they wanted a cigarette, they could smoke. The only thing they were asked to do was simply count to 10 before lighting up . After they were used to that tiny change, they waited 20 seconds before lighting up. Then 30 seconds. The tiny and continuous good change meant that they could eventually wait a whole hour before lighting up, then a whole day. There was zero resistance because there was no denial and no declaration that they were going to quit smoking.
• Use Kaizen to release pounds. Kaizen was used to help folks slim down by asking them to fix their plate as usual, but before eating, they were to take the first forkful of food and put it aside (on another plate, or give it to the dog, or give it to someone else at the table who wanted a taste). They continued eating their meal as usual, with zero denial, which meant zero resistance. Their brains offered no resistance to giving up one forkful of food. After they got used to one forkful, they would give up two forkfuls and so on. All the while, their tummy’s were shrinking and pounds were falling off.

These are just two examples…catch my post later this week on 21 Ways to Implement Kaizen In Everyday Living for lots more.

In the meantime, take it slow and steady. There’s no need to rush. You will certainly transform, and you can do it easily, joyfully and with zero resistance.

Here’s to your good change,

VAL

P.S. — To read more, here’s the Wiki explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen

Tags: conscious living, Destiny Life Coach, Destiny Living, Kaizen, Life Coaching, success, the art of being, transformation