How a Little Becomes a Lot: A Real Coaching Session on Small Changes That Stick

The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose

Eric Zimmer, The One You Feed

Education, Religion & Spirituality, Buddhism, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.5 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 March 2026

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this special episode, Eric coaches a listener named Birgit as she rebuilds her daily routine after a long-term illness and her children leaving home. Together, they explore practical strategies for habit formation, focusing on starting with a consistent healthy habits. Using frameworks like SPAR and RENEW, they discuss breaking habits into small steps, planning ahead, and responding compassionately to setbacks. The conversation highlights the importance of structure, self-kindness, and progress over perfection, offering listeners actionable advice for building sustainable routines during life transitions. Exciting News!!! Coming in March, 2026, my new book, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠How a Little Becomes a Lot: The Art of Small Changes for a More Meaningful Life is now available for pre-orders!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Key Takeaways: Rebuilding life after a long-term illness and navigating changes in daily structure. Establishing a consistent morning routine, focusing on a healthy breakfast habit. The importance of specificity and simplicity in habit formation. Strategies for reducing decision fatigue and avoiding procrastination. The SPA framework: Specificity, Prompts, Alignment, and Resilience for habit building. The RENEW framework for resetting habits after setbacks: Recognize, Embrace your Why, Neutralize emotional drama, Extract the lesson, and Walk forward. The role of self-compassion and positive self-talk in maintaining habits. The significance of small, manageable actions to overcome resistance. The impact of environmental setup on habit formation and behavior. Emphasizing progress over perfection in the journey of habit change. For full show notes:⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠click here⁠⁠⁠!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ If you enjoyed this episode, check out these other episodes: Why Willpower Isn’t Enough: The Tiny Habits Method Explained with Dr. BJ Fogg How to Create Elastic Habits that Adapt to Your Day with Stephen Guise By purchasing products and/or services from our sponsors, you are helping to support The One You Feed, and we greatly appreciate it. Thank you! This episode is sponsored by: ⁠Shopify⁠ – The commerce platform that helps you build, grow, and manage your business all in one place. Start your $1/month trial at shopify.com/feed. ⁠Pebl⁠ – an AI-powered platform that helps companies hire and manage global teams in 185+ countries. Get a free estimate at ⁠hipebl.ai⁠ ⁠Brodo Broth⁠: Shop the best broth on the planet with Brodo. Head to ⁠Brodo.com/TOYF⁠ for 20% off your first subscription order and use code TOYF for an additional $10 off. ⁠Alma⁠ is on a mission to simplify access to high-quality, affordable mental health care. Visit ⁠helloalma.com⁠ to learn more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	With specificity, what we're trying to do in the beginning is get rid of all ambiguity,
0:06.0	all offroads from the path you want to be on.
0:09.3	Because the more that we have to think about what to do in the moment and then do it,
0:14.4	the harder it becomes to do it.
0:25.2	Welcome to the one you feed.
0:29.9	Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
0:35.3	Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
0:38.6	And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
0:40.2	We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear.
0:44.9	We see what we don't have instead of what we do.
0:47.8	We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
0:51.3	But it's not just about thinking.
0:53.3	Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
0:56.4	and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
1:01.7	themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.
1:08.9	Starting something new is always really difficult because we get caught up in the stories of
1:15.5	what if it doesn't work out or what if I put time into this and it fails. And I felt all that
1:20.8	when Chris and I started this podcast, but I'm so glad that I did start, that I started taking positive steps towards something that mattered.
1:30.4	And so if you're thinking of building a business, Shopify makes that leap a lot less chaotic.
1:36.5	It's the commerce platform behind millions of businesses and about 10% of all e-commerce in the
1:43.0	U.S. from brands you already know like all birds and hinds,
1:47.0	to people just getting started.
	...

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