Marketing Dopamine • October 25, 2026
Start Smaller Than Feels Right
When we finally decide to change something, the instinct is to go big.
Post every day. Overhaul the website this weekend. Reach out to fifty people. Rebuild the whole system at once. Ambition feels like commitment, and commitment feels like the right way to begin.
But ambitious starts have a way of running out of steam.
The first busy week arrives, and the plan quietly falls apart.
If your first step feels almost too easy, you are probably doing it right.
Starting small is not a lack of ambition. It is a strategy for staying in the game. A step that fits into your worst week is a step you can keep taking. A step that requires your best week will only happen when everything goes right, which is rarely.
Reach out to three people instead of fifty. Rewrite one sentence instead of the whole page. Spend fifteen minutes instead of an afternoon. Then do it again tomorrow.
It will feel slow. It will also still be happening a month from now, which is more than most big starts can say.
The habit matters more than the size of the first step.
Start small enough that you cannot fail, and keep going long enough that it starts to matter.
Lisa Carmichael is the author of The Marketing Dopamine Workbook: From Awareness to Action, available now, a companion to her book Marketing Dopamine: What Your Brain Is Really Doing When You Think You’re Building a Business, coming soon. Learn more at marketingdopamine.com
I love the idea of taking small steps and making each step easy and doable. I usually complicat things excessive and then an tempted to give up completely. Using the baby step approach, as opposed to a huge leap, would help me stay on track, for sure.
I can relate to overcomplicating things! Sometimes we make the first step so big that it becomes overwhelming before we’ve even begun. I think there’s something encouraging about giving ourselves permission to start small and build from there. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you for sharing this! I have taken ambitious steps and have then run out of steam. I have been shifting my focus on cultivating a habit of consistency. I like what you said about “The habit matters more than the size of the first step.”
I can relate to that! It’s easy to get excited about a big goal and take on too much at once. I’ve found that consistency is often harder than getting started, but it’s also where the real progress happens. Those small steps may not feel like much at the time, but they certainly add up. Thanks for sharing!