How Small Steps Lead to Giant Leaps

Why does a long, unchanging routine feel so draining? Why does our brain crave new experiences? Evolutionary psychology offers a compelling explanation. Our species, Homo sapiens, has been around for about 300,000 years. For an astonishing 97% of that time, we lived as nomads. We only began to settle down about 10,000 years ago.

For nearly 290,000 years, our ancestors never stayed in one place for long. They were in constant motion, their brains continuously processing fresh sights, smells, and sounds. This wasn't like scrolling through new content on a screen. The modern firehose of digital information doesn't satisfy this ancient craving. A true new experience is immersive and engages the whole body—the feeling of a different temperature on your skin, the scent of unfamiliar plants, the sounds of a new environment. It’s tied to physical movement. Your entire psychomotor system is involved.

Modern science backs this up. A study by researchers from New York University and the University of Miami tracked participants' movements with GPS while asking them to report their emotional state. The results were fascinating: on days when people visited more new places and varied their routines, they reported feeling happier, more excited, and more relaxed. And this positive feeling didn't just last for that day—it carried over into the next.

The biggest discovery was what happened inside the brain. Using MRI scans, the scientists found that new experiences activate the hippocampus and the striatum—brain regions crucial for processing rewards and new memories. Our brains are literally wired to feel good when we explore. From an evolutionary perspective, this makes perfect sense. If you walk the same path ten times, you won't find any new berries or fruit. A new path, however, holds the promise of new resources. Our unchanging daily commute, the same walk to the same store, goes against the very grain of our nomadic brain. The psyche’s desire to see a new picture is perfectly normal; it's a call from our deepest past.

To Change Yourself, Change Your World

So, we've established that the need for new experiences is natural. But what does this have to do with personal transformation? The connection is simple but profound: changing the world around you is the first step to changing yourself. As the old philosophical saying goes, "being determines consciousness."

If you want to transform, your brain needs new raw material to work with. Think of the great figures of history. The scholar Mikhail Lomonosov first walked from a remote northern village to a major city, saw a new world, and only then went on to co-found a great university. Peter the Great embarked on a grand tour of Europe, and only after he returned did he begin his sweeping reforms.

This pattern appears again and again. Frédéric Chopin moved several times in his life. Pyotr Tchaikovsky often lived abroad. Elon Musk was born in Africa, moved to Canada, and then to the United States. Ancient thinkers like Aristotle, Herodotus, and Ibn Sina (known in Europe as Avicenna) led lives full of travel and movement. Can you think of any major figure who achieved greatness by staying in their hometown, never changing their environment or giving their brain new food for thought? They seemed to understand instinctively that a curious mind needs to be fed with fresh impressions. A new experience provides a new perspective, allowing the brain to think outside the box and transform itself.

Without this new input, the brain has no fuel for transformation. If a child grows up in the wild, raised by animals, they may look like a human, but they won't develop human consciousness or language. The environment is everything. You cannot achieve a meaningful transformation by sitting in the same room, watching an online training seminar. There's no new content for your brain to build upon.

The Real Mechanism of Change

Personal transformation can be defined as a fundamental shift in a person's perception, thinking, and behavior. But how do you actually trigger it? Simply traveling doesn't automatically transform you, though people who vary their routines often feel better than those who don't. The key ingredient is a goal.

Peter the Great went to Holland with a specific goal: to learn shipbuilding. But as he absorbed this new world, his goal expanded. He returned a changed man with a transformed vision for his entire kingdom. Lomonosov’s initial goal was simply to learn Latin, a necessary step for higher education at the time. This small, concrete goal set him on a path that filled his mind with new knowledge and ultimately led him to reshape science in his country.

Transformation happens in a clear sequence, often sparked by a challenge.

1. A challenge appears. This could be a problem to solve or a goal to achieve.
2. Perception changes. You're forced to look at the world differently. You start to see familiar objects and situations in a new light.
3. Thinking shifts. With a new perception, you begin to process information differently and find new solutions.
4. Behavior changes. Armed with new thoughts, you act in new ways.

Imagine you need to measure a tabletop but don't have a measuring tape. This simple challenge forces your perception to change. Suddenly, an iPhone charging cable (which has a standard length of one meter) or a sheet of A4 paper (with its standard dimensions) is no longer just a cable or paper—it’s a potential measuring tool. This new perception kicks off new thinking (how can I use this to measure?), which leads to new behavior (actually measuring the table with the cable). This is transformation in miniature.

The Art of the First Small Step

So where do you find that initial challenge? You don't need to book a trip to the ends of the earth. The initial spark can come from something very small. As the research showed, you don't have to go to another continent to activate your brain's novelty centers. Simply take a different route home from work. Get off the subway one stop early and walk through unfamiliar streets. Go to a different grocery store.

These small acts give your brain a taste of something new and can activate the very regions responsible for processing new experiences. This is often enough to set an initial, small goal. As you work toward it, new horizons will begin to appear.

This leads to the most practical piece of advice: embrace the art of small steps. When you set your initial goal, make it small and, most importantly, achievable. If you had told the 19-year-old Lomonosov that his destiny was to found a university, the sheer scale of the task would have crushed him. His goal was simple: learn Latin. For Peter the Great, the mission wasn't to "open a window to Europe"; it was to learn how to build better ships.

Think with the same logic. Your initial goal should be just one step away. Take that step, get the result, and a new, broader horizon will open up, giving your brain the fuel it needs for the next phase of its transformation.

References

• Hartley, C. A., Heller, A. S., et al. (2020). Daily Exploratory Behavior Is Associated with Positive Affect and Striatal-Hippocampal Circuitry. Neuron, 106(3), 508–519.e6.

  This is the core scientific study mentioned that directly supports the article's claims. Researchers used GPS tracking and experience sampling to show that days with greater variability in physical location were associated with higher positive affect. The fMRI component of the study confirmed that this exploratory behavior was linked to increased functional connectivity between the hippocampus and the striatum, key brain areas for reward and novelty processing.

• Buss, D. M. (2019). Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (6th ed.). Routledge.

  This foundational textbook provides a broad overview of how human psychology has been shaped by evolutionary pressures. Specifically, Chapter 3, "Combating the Hostile Forces of Nature," discusses the evolutionary problems of survival, such as food selection and choosing a habitat. This material provides the context for the "nomadic brain" hypothesis, explaining why our minds evolved to favor exploration and seek out new environments rich in resources.