Five Kaizens That Will Elevate Your Life

Baby steps, people! Baby steps!!!!

Getting to this article was an absolute struggle. I have been so blessed with great luck over the last three months with the projects that I have been nurturing that I literally had to write KAIZEN in large capital letters on my daily journal page (taking up the whole sheet). The inspiration for writing about this life-changing approach to improving myself is the actual result of the application of Kaizen in my life. The sh*t actually works.

Before I get into what Kaizen means to me and Jeromatherapy (my brand) I have to tell you that I have been deeply immersed in the practice for years with Trader Joe’s where I have been employed for almost 11 years (see previous articles by me on Medium for that story). Without divulging too much about TJ’s formula for success (which is legendary and unique) I can tell you that the application of Kaizen is woven into the fabric of everyday operations at each store. Crew members there are encouraged to contribute their input to local store operations, and everybody’s ideas and suggestions are considered, on the spot and immediately, and shared with other crew members in the store through daily “huddles”. It allows management to support the crew better and keeps morale high, with the result being well-informed, engaged and energetic employees facing the customers and providing a “WOW” experience.

This principle has brought me great happiness and progress in every area in my life to which I’ve applied it. Along with Jeromatherapy I am engaged with other startups, mostly on the business development side, ranging from renewable and sustainable materials to medical testing equipment to sports marketing. I have even laid the groundwork for a non-profit that addresses the needs of athletes with physical challenges.

Ambitious? Yes.

Am I a dreamer? Yes again.

Overwhelming? Used-to-be.

But you can’t live the dream until you have a dream.

At my age, where most of my peers are winding down their careers and posting great pictures of their grandchildren, I am just starting to reach my stride in discovering and developing my skills and assets and putting them to profitable use. A natural phenomenon of life near 60 is that you tend to go to bed earlier and get up way earlier. The time I have to reach my goals is clearly defined every day so I have to the most of my ME time to get all of these projects the attention they need to be successful.

Kaizen when applied enables and encourages you to do things a little better each day. Loosely defined, Kaizen is the continuous, marginal improvement of the things we do every day to support our goals, plans and dreams. It goes past routine, which is the grounding repetition of daily processes, to actually focus on doing what you do better, more appealing and less of a chore or perceived drudgery, to complete more tasks and achieve more goals while at the same time improving yourself at every stage.

Five examples of Kaizens that I follow are indispensable to my pursuit of success (as defined by me every day). Not in any order of importance.

1. I pick a baseline time to get up on Monday and then beat that time by 10 or 15 minutes each day of the week to where on Saturday I’m generally up early enough to get a full 5K run completed before the coffee finishes it’s auto-brew. This extra time in the morning allows me time to really focus on my progress of the previous day’s plan-to-reality and read one or two extra articles on Medium.
2. Running is my exercise of choice and I generally run five times a week, weather permitting. Again I choose a baseline pace and distance on Monday and the lengthen the distance or increase the pace the next four runs. I decide which during the first two minutes of each run. This keeps it fresh and I really have to concentrate on hitting the daily goal on every run. This also helps in setting the likelihood of completing the other important task of the day. This can apply to other forms of exercise as well. I will challenge myself to impossible online yoga workouts on really crappy weather days or skip rope at different intervals to keep my body guessing…
3. I have six siblings and we are all blessed with a reading gene passed on from our mother. My librarian sister keeps us all posted on hot books and articles she knows are of interest to us and we share our likes and dislikes in a grueling Messenger thread. I am typically reading four books at a time and I shuttle between them all with no timeline for completion of any of them (yes, I abandon some when I feel I’m getting no value) but with every book I keep SMART MARKS notes (available from BestSelf) and compile my notes at the end of the week. This helps me in my entrepreneurial endeavors and most importantly in my writing for Medium.
4. Always an aspiring musician I have always taken time in my day to learn a new riff on my guitar or to put a different genre of music on Spotify to broaden my repertoire. My goal for 2021 was to learn one new song a week. I’m not quite there, but this has led to a new Kaizen — songwriting. I’m terrified by this prospect but everybody has something they want to say so why not put it to a melody? It is challenging but also frees your soul and makes everything else creative seem easy. The deal here is to challenge yourself to do something that is outside your comfort zone yet in a framework that is familiar to you. And it makes me a better musician.
5. I reach out to people who many would deem untouchable figures in self-improvement media. You’d be surprised how many direct responses I get from writers whom I have liked and followed on Medium and Instagram and Facebook. Asking questions, chatting, sharing. Just putting yourself out there is liberating, and you will find that you are learning more about yourself and your talents with every new conversation. Doing this myself, I find myself having taken on a new persona online, representing new products that I have discovered, use and love, and sharing myself more comfortably with a huge audience.

It’s About Improving

Improving your life incrementally through Kaizen is a personal aspiration but it is also something to be shared and offers great opportunities to collaborate with others. My wife and I discuss our goals and our Kaizens every morning over our coffees (or now, for me, MUD\WTR, another Kaizen). It’s responsible for her getting her real estate license, starting her own fashion side-hustle and channel on YouTube.

Again, its a continuous, incremental process so every day there is an opportunity to get better. And the sh*t works!

Learn more about Kaizen and Life Well Lived at Jeromatherapy.com