The Art of Changing How You Function (Without Burnout or Self-Destruction)

Summary: Your brain isn’t wired for instant reinvention—it’s wired for survival. While we crave big, dramatic change, our brains actually resist it, preferring familiarity and efficiency over upheaval. This post explores why massive overhauls fail, how perfectionism keeps us stuck, and why the key to real, sustainable transformation lies in small, incremental shifts that work with your brain, not against it.

Do you ever wake up and decide that everything in your life needs to change? Like, maybe it’s 3 AM and you’re staring at the ceiling, thinking, I need a new job, a new diet, a new personality, and maybe I should also learn Italian and run a marathon.

We’ve all been there. That deep, desperate urge to burn it all down and reinvent ourselves from scratch. And let me be the first to say: that is a terrible idea.

Not because change is bad—change is necessary. But big, dramatic, wholesale change? That’s a scam. It’s the siren song of desperation and perfectionism, wrapped in a productivity cult bow.

The real magic? It’s in the small moves. Tiny, barely noticeable shifts that feel unimpressive at first but, over time, fundamentally alter the trajectory of your life. The problem is that our brains hate this. We crave grand, cinematic transformation. The “before” and “after” montage, preferably with dramatic music and a brand-new haircut. But that’s not how real change works.

Now, before we get into making actual moves, we need to talk about planning. Specifically, how it’s a trap.

Planning feels productive, which is why it’s so sneaky. We sit down, make an elaborate spreadsheet, buy a special notebook, create a vision board, and tell ourselves that we’re taking the first step. We are not.

We are, in fact, STALLING.

Why? Because planning isn’t action, and action is terrifying.

It’s much safer to plan to change than to actually change.

But there’s another, even more insidious layer to this: the unspoken demand that our plan be perfect. Somewhere in the back of our minds, there’s a little voice whispering, If you don’t do this flawlessly, you’ve failed. And because we know we won’t do it flawlessly, we put off starting.

See how that works? Perfectionism keeps us trapped in inertia.

This is why people spend years waiting for the “right time” to start therapy, exercise, creative projects, or literally anything meaningful. We convince ourselves that we need the perfect conditions before we begin. But here’s the brutal truth:

And if that makes you uncomfortable, congrats! You’re a human.

So if we can’t plan our way into transformation, how the hell do we start?

With one, tiny, laughably small action.

Why small? Because fear is inertia, and inertia is best broken with minimal force.

Think of fear like a giant, rusted-shut door. If you try to kick it open, you’re going to exhaust yourself and probably break your metaphorical foot. But if you gently, patiently start nudging it—just a little, consistently—it will open.

This is why the first action matters more than all the grand plans in the world. It doesn’t have to be right. It doesn’t have to be impressive. It just has to exist.

The smaller, the better. Because once you’re moving, everything gets easier.

Now, let’s talk about the absolute worst way to change: the all-or-nothing, burn-it-all-down, new-year-new-me approach.

The problem with big changes is that they require big investment. And the moment we go all-in on something, we become too invested to pivot.

Let’s say you decide, I’m going to completely change my diet and start working out every single day. You’re excited. You’re motivated. You buy expensive groceries, a gym membership, and fancy workout clothes.

And then… you realize you hate it. Or it’s unsustainable. Or it doesn’t actually fit your life.

Now what? Well, you’re so invested that admitting it’s not working feels like failure. And because we hate feeling like failures, we either:

Either way, you’ve trapped yourself.

But when you make small changes, there’s no identity crisis if something doesn’t work. You just… adjust. No dramatic breakdown required.

Let’s use an analogy, because brains love analogies.

Think of yourself as a spaceship floating in deep space. A giant, complicated, incredible piece of machinery, built for extraordinary things.

But here’s the thing about spaceships: they don’t make sharp turns.

If a spaceship wants to change direction, it doesn’t spin the wheel and slam on the brakes like a car. It makes tiny, incremental course corrections over time. A small shift, repeated, can change the entire trajectory of the ship.

But if you suddenly jerk the controls and force a massive change? You’ll either overshoot your destination or spiral into chaos.

This is why humans—just like spaceships—function best when we make continuous, small moves toward a general goal, rather than throwing ourselves down an entirely new path that we don’t understand the ramifications of.

Want to change your life? Nudge, don’t yank.

Alright, so now that we’ve debunked the fantasy of dramatic reinvention, how do you actually change how you function?

1. Pick One Tiny Move
Make it stupidly small. Something you can’t fail at. Something that requires no planning, no investment, and no pressure.

2. Expect It to Feel Unimpressive
Your brain wants fireworks. Give it a single match instead. The goal isn’t to feel amazing—it’s to start moving.

3. Course Correct as You Go
Pay attention to how the change feels. Adjust accordingly. You’re not locked into one choice—adapting as you go is how real change happens. There’s no failure here, just learning.

4. Stack Tiny Moves Over Time
Once your first move becomes natural, add another. Then another. Before you know it, you’ve made radical change—without the burnout.

The truth is, you don’t need a whole new life—you just need to start moving in a new direction. The trick is to make the first move small enough that you can’t talk yourself out of it.

Forget the grand reinvention. Forget waiting for the perfect time. Just start where you are, with what you have, today.

And remember: you are a goddamn spaceship. Course correct accordingly.