Micropower

We've all had moments (or long periods of time) where we felt like there was no hope, or that we were powerless to do anything in our situation.

I have felt like that before, more than once.

You may be feeling like that right now.

Between the many factors in our world that are completely out of our control, and the situations we sometimes find ourselves in where everything feels against us - at some point, we all feel this way.

However, there may be a tool we can use to fight against these feelings.

What Is Micropower?

In one of the certifications I'm going through with Precision Nutrition for "Sleep, Stress Management, and Recovery", they described a concept called "Micropower".

The technical definition is this:

"Taking tiny actions on your own behalf to resist constraints."

Another way to say this is to "Seek Small Victories".

But can small victories really help against Hopelessness and Powerlessness?

SERE And The Military

A collaborator for this certification, Craig Weller, shared an example of Micropower from his military days - SERE.

SERE stands for Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.

Within this concept, they were taught that if anyone was ever taken prisoner, they were to resist captivity in whatever small ways they were able.

Small acts of sabotage.

Stealing tiny bits of food.

Undermining people in authority positions.

By doing this, you can take back bits of personal sovereignty, gain empowerment, and continue to express agency.

In the most dire of situations, these small acts have helped people survive the most dire of situations.

Why Micropower Is Important Scientifically

There are many reasons why Micropower is important.

The first aspect to consider is that our brains are hardwired to look for evidence "for" or "against" our thoughts.

When we have no proof of power or hope, our brain will tell us, "Look! There's no evidence, so you must not have power or hope!"

This pushes us deeper into hopelessness and powerlessness.

However, if we begin to accumulate "some" evidence, we start to train the brain on different criteria.

When we start to feel a lack of power or hope, our brain begins to say different things, "Well, remember that time when you felt hopeless and powerless, but you did that small thing anyways?"

The more examples you give your brain, the more powerful and hopeful you will feel.

With this, starting small (even "insignificantly" small) allows you to accomplish something easily!

By doing this, you can quickly and easily get a LOT of evidence to give your brain!

It also allows you to bypass the brain's desire to conserve energy because it is SO small that it isn't going to change your energy levels!

Also, by accomplishing small things, we begin to get "microdoses" of feel-good neurochemicals.

At the brain level, these small moments of having power literally begin to rewire the brain to "seek" more ways to feel power and hope!

Each instance provides the neurochemicals our bodies love, provides more evidence, and strengthens the neural connections to reinforce what we want in our lives.

Along with this, small victories like these are the basis for creating habits.

In BJ Fogg's work, he talks about "Tiny Habits".

Each time we complete a "tiny" habit, a moment of micropower, we have the ability to then Celebrate that.

The more we do that action, and the more we celebrate, the faster we can create "Habits" of powerfulness and hopefulness!

According to "The ONE Thing" by Jay Papasan and Gary Keller, it takes (on average) 66 days to create a habit.

Each day we express micropower, each day we celebrate, each day we turn it into a habit, the faster we reach 66 days.

At 66 days, it becomes easier to DO the habit than it does to NOT do the habit.

This means that we have created enough evidence, celebration, and neural connections for our brains to feel hope and power without us needing to "try" to feel it!

This becomes the strength of Micropower!