Start with Small Steps

Jill from The Northwoods

Start With Small Steps is a practical, thoughtful podcast about making meaningful progress in everyday life—without overwhelm. Each episode breaks big ideas into small, manageable steps you can actually use, whether you’re working on habits, health, productivity, faith, or personal growth. Instead of chasing quick fixes or perfect systems, this podcast focuses on steady change, reflection, and realistic action. You’ll hear clear explanations, relatable examples, and simple frameworks designed to help you think better, choose wisely, and keep moving forward—even when life feels complicated or slow. Start With Small Steps is for anyone who wants growth that fits real life: small actions, honest reflection, and progress that lasts.

  1. 2d ago

    292 - What My Childhood Taught My Nervous System

    Most conversations about hard childhoods stop at “it affected them as kids.” Almost nobody asks what happens after — because childhood doesn’t stay contained to childhood. It moves in with you as an adult, and it rarely announces itself when it shows up. In this episode, I walk through Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs): what the research actually found, how it showed up in my own life, and four practical starting points for anyone who recognizes themselves in this. What ACEs Actually Are In the 1990s, Kaiser Permanente and the CDC studied adults about specific categories of childhood hardship — abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction like addiction, untreated mental illness, or divorce. What they found wasn’t just emotional; it reshaped how researchers understood long-term physical health outcomes too. How It Shows Up Decades Later Higher rates of heart disease, chronic pain, weight and substance struggles — and a quieter pattern I know personally: being “braced for impact” even when nothing is actually wrong. I share how noticing this in my own stress data was the first real clue. It’s Not a Life Sentence A high ACE score doesn’t determine your future. The single biggest protective factor across every study was having just one steady, caring adult somewhere in the picture — and that changes the odds significantly. Step 1: Name It You can’t fix a reaction you haven’t identified. I walk through how naming a pattern (“I don’t trust the future”) is the first real step, not a reason to stay stuck in it. Step 2: Your Body Remembers Old alarm systems fire in new contexts — a late bill, an unexpected email — and recognizing that pattern is different from being ruled by it. Step 3: Stability Is Not Wasted Effort Rebuilding a calm, steady life as an adult recalibrates a nervous system that never had that as a baseline. It may take longer than it would for someone with a steady childhood, but it’s not out of reach. Step 4: Everything Is Figureoutable The bridge from naming the pattern to actually doing something about it — including the strange, personal story of how my own decades-long insomnia finally resolved. If any part of this sounds like your own life, it’s not a life sentence — it’s information. Naming it and building stability from here is where the real change starts. Recommended resource: The original ACE study questionnaire is short, self-scoring, and available online in about five minutes if you want a starting point. Find every show I do at jillfromthenorthwoods.com. This episode touches on childhood trauma and family dysfunction. If anything in it sounds like your own experience and it’s weighing on you right now, please consider reaching out to a mental health professional or a trusted person in your life for support. Jill’s Links https://jillfromthenorthwoods.com/ - Find my podcasts, videos, downloads and ways to contact me https://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspod https://x.com/NorthWoodsJill https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  2. Jul 21

    291 - The Habit That Looks Good But Quietly Takes Over

    I learned one of the most important lessons of my life from a video game — and it’s not the lesson you’d expect. It wasn’t that gaming is bad, or that hobbies are dangerous. It’s that something can be completely good at the start and still quietly ask for more than it should later on. This week I’m telling the EverQuest story I don’t tell very often, and the one sentence from a friend that changed how I evaluate everything I do with my time. The Guild That Ran My Life For nine years, I was deeply involved in a hardcore EverQuest raiding guild — the kind where raids couldn’t be paused, dinner waited, and sleep was optional. It wasn’t one dramatic decision that got me there. It was thousands of small ones, all pointing the same direction. “You Used to Be Interested in So Many Things” The moment that actually changed things wasn’t a health scare — it was one sentence from a friend who noticed my world had quietly gotten smaller. That line is the whole spine of this episode, and I still think about it years later. Why Quitting Isn’t the Fix When the pandemic hit, I almost walked right back into the same hole. What actually rescued me wasn’t willpower or cutting something out — it was adding something back in: a podcast, suggested almost as an afterthought by a friend. The Question I Ask About Everything Now I stopped asking whether a hobby is good or bad. I ask whether it’s making my world bigger or smaller. That single shift changed how I evaluate every commitment, project, and pastime I take on. Four Questions to Find Your Own “EverQuest” Instead of counting hours, I walk through four practical questions this episode — what’s quietly disappeared from your life, what hidden habits your favorite activity encourages, how to bring back one old interest at a time, and who to ask for an honest outside read on what you actually talk about most. The goal was never to quit the things I love. I still play video games — they just fit inside my life now instead of running it. If you’ve ever wondered whether something you love has quietly taken over more room than it should, this episode is for you. You can find everything I do at jillfromthenorthwoods.com. My email is jill@startwithsmallsteps.com. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  3. Jul 14

    290 - 7 Small Steps to Get Better at Small Talk

    Do you dread small talk, or are you the person who can strike up a conversation with a total stranger in the checkout line? Either way, this episode is for you. Small talk gets dismissed as fluff — empty chatter about the weather before the “real” conversation starts — but it’s actually doing something important: it’s the on-ramp to every deeper connection we have. Why Small Talk Isn’t Pointless Small talk is the bridge between “we’ve never met” and “we actually know each other.” Without it, you can’t get to the meaningful stuff — you have to test the water first, find shared ground, and build from there. Jill shares a story about a coworker who thought small talk was painful until she watched Jill use it to connect people at a conference in minutes. It’s a Social Muscle Like any skill, the more low-stakes small talk you practice, the more comfortable you get with conversation in general — and that skill transfers to networking, dating, and even hard family conversations. It also signals warmth and approachability, which matters more than we think in a season researchers are calling a loneliness epidemic. Where It Shows Up in Real Life Professional advancement often happens informally — in hallway chats and casual check-ins, not just performance reviews. In relationships, small talk is maintenance: couples who check in with “how was your day” tend to stay more connected than couples who only discuss logistics. And it turns out brief, friendly exchanges with strangers give real, measurable boosts to mood and confidence. Seven Small Steps to Get Better at It For anyone who feels like small talk doesn’t come naturally, Jill breaks it into concrete steps: lower the bar (nice weather today is a complete success), use the FORD method (Family, Occupation, Recreation, Dreams) when you’re stuck, comment instead of question, practice in low-stakes places, set tiny specific goals, let silence be okay, and exit gracefully. Small talk isn’t shallow — it’s the quiet infrastructure of connection. It doesn’t ask you to become someone you’re not; it just asks for one small step, with one extra person, today. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  4. Jul 7

    289 - Why Neglected Things Don’t Just Stagnate,They Disappear

    “Ignore your teeth and they’ll go away.” It’s an old joke that isn’t really a joke — and today I’m using it as a doorway into something bigger: the idea that your life isn’t just built by what you add to it. It’s also shaped by what you quietly stop tending to. Neglect Has a Direction. We tend to think of not doing something as a safe, neutral choice. It isn’t. Teeth are the clearest example because the consequence is physical and undeniable — skip the maintenance long enough, and the tooth is just gone. There’s no pause button. The Brain Does This Too. I dig into synaptic pruning — the real neurological principle where your brain actively prunes connections you don’t use. I use my own experience losing touch with music appreciation after audiobooks and podcasts took over that mental space as a low-stakes example of something that happens in much higher-stakes places too: friendships, physical health, skills, faith. The Tending Principle — Three Parts. First, neglect is not neutral; doing nothing is still a direction, and that direction is decay. Second, capacity is finite — every yes is a quiet no to something else, and you often don’t find out what you gave up until later. Third, some losses are recoverable and some aren’t (my running came back; my teeth never will), and the real skill is being humble enough to tell the difference. It’s Not Just the Obvious Stuff. I walk through how this shows up in physical fitness, friendships that thin out from lack of contact rather than conflict, skills and identity, and even resilience — I noticed my own capacity for handling crisis softened once my life got quieter and I stopped needing it as often. One Small Step. Take a general read of your life: does the actual shape of your time match the life you want? Then pick one thing — one relationship, one habit, one part of your health or your faith — that’s been quietly slipping, and give it a little bit of attention this week. You won’t get your whole life back at once, but you will get information, and that’s what lets you choose on purpose instead of finding out by accident. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  5. Jun 30

    288 - Stop Sitting on the Floor: The Hidden Cost of Avoidance

    You know what a five-minute task looks like when a kid doesn’t want to do it? An hour-long standoff. Socks on the floor. Full dramatic collapse. And the worst part is, that kid is also missing out on the thing they actually wanted to do — playtime they could have been having — because now they’re in a battle that didn’t need to happen. Sound familiar? Because I do it too. Not on the floor, not with the socks, but the mechanism is exactly the same. And that’s what this episode is about. Avoidance Isn’t Free. We think of avoidance as a break — a little breathing room before we tackle the hard thing. But what’s actually happening is we’re adding every undone task to a mental backpack we carry through the entire day. The gym you meant to hit. The email you’re dreading. The bill you keep not looking at. Each one is a background process running in your brain, quietly draining your energy and your focus, popping up with mild guilt every time it surfaces. Two Versions of Your Day. I walk through what it actually looks like to compare the day where you do the planned thing first versus the day where you negotiate with yourself until 10pm. The first version is done and forgotten in 30 minutes. The second version haunts you all day and you probably still don’t do the thing. The ADHD Layer. For those of us with ADHD, this pattern can run deeper — the executive function piece makes it genuinely harder to initiate tasks even when we want to do them. This isn’t laziness. But understanding the pattern is still the first step whether or not ADHD is part of your picture. Mel Robbins and the 5-Second Rule. I’m not here to reinvent something that’s already been figured out. Mel Robbins cracked this one open with a beautifully simple move: when you feel the impulse to act, count backwards from five and go before your brain builds a case against it. It interrupts the internal committee meeting before the agenda even gets distributed. Three Concrete Moves. Name it (you can’t change what you don’t see), shrink it (the first 30 seconds of a task, not the whole thing), and do the countdown. That’s it. You’re not building a system. You’re just deciding not to sit on the floor. The real payoff isn’t productivity for its own sake. It’s the rest you’ve actually earned at the end of a day where you did the thing you said you were going to do. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  6. Jun 23

    287 - Stuck and Can’t Start? SPARK: A Motivation Framework for Brains That Won’t Cooperate

    I used to think something was wrong with me. I’d sit there knowing a task mattered — knowing it mattered yesterday, last week, last month — and still couldn’t get myself to move on it. For years I asked myself the wrong question: why isn’t this getting done? The better question, it turns out, is what does my brain actually need to get started? That question changed everything, and it’s where SPARK came from. Story. I’m a story person. I don’t care that a bird exists — I care about the three hours I spent finding it. When I’m stuck on a task, I ask what’s interesting about it, not what needs to get done. Curiosity creates momentum that obligation never will. Purpose. Abstract tasks mean nothing until there’s a real person on the other side of them. Whether it’s an IT ticket or a podcast episode that isn’t coming together, I think about who actually needs this and why — and the task shifts even though the work doesn’t. Adventure. Not everything can be an adventure (folding laundry is still folding laundry), but a lot of tasks can become small experiments instead of obligations. Possibility is motivating in a way duty never is. Reality. This one needs care, because it’s easy to slide from reality into fear. Fear says you’ll end up broken and miss out on life. Reality says every choice is a small vote for the future you’re building. I’d rather feed the tiger that’s still hiking at 80 than the one that isn’t. Kickstart. Some days none of the above works. On those days, the only question that matters is: what’s the smallest next possible step? Mow the front yard, not the whole lawn. Put on your shoes, not your whole workout. Starting is the hard part — once you start, momentum tends to take over. You don’t need all five letters every time. Pick whichever one fits the moment, and let it do its job. Most of us aren’t waking up already disciplined and on fire — and that’s not a flaw, that’s just being human. If you’ve been stuck on something, I’d love to know which letter of SPARK actually got you moving. Email me at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com or leave a comment — and until next time, keep taking those small steps. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  7. Jun 16

    286 - The Difference Between Modest and Invisible at Work

    I have played the performance review game for my entire career. And I have been playing it wrong. Not wrong in the obvious way — I wasn’t making things up or padding my resume. I was doing something that felt like humility and was actually closer to inaccuracy: describing real, significant work in the smallest possible terms, handing my manager a vague document, and then wondering why I didn’t feel seen. This episode is about the game underneath the game. Because most of us think performance reviews are a documentation exercise — write down what you did, your manager writes down what they thought you did, everyone signs off, and you move on. That’s the surface layer. What’s actually happening is that your manager is taking your self-evaluation into a room full of other managers and using it as a brief to advocate for you. Or not. The calibration room you don’t know about In most organizations, managers sit together and compare their teams. Not résumés — narratives. Whoever’s story is clearest and most specific gives their manager the most to work with. Vague doesn’t win in that room. And if you handed your manager something weak, they might know your work was excellent, but if you can’t describe it clearly, they probably can’t either. The Midwest humility problem I grew up in a culture where you let your work speak for itself, you deflect compliments, and you give away credit even when it cost you. None of that is wrong as a value. But the performance review system was designed for people who know how to make a direct case for themselves. When your cultural wiring says stay small and the system rewards people who speak up, you lose ground to people who simply know the rules better. Humility vs. inaccuracy This is the reframe that actually helped me. Humility says: “I know I didn’t do this alone. I know I have more to learn.” Inaccuracy says: “I barely did anything.” Those are not the same statement. Most of us struggling with self-reviews aren’t exaggerating — we’re under-articulating. We know what we did. We just describe it in the smallest terms possible because anything bigger feels uncomfortable. Four things you can do right now One: understand the system — your review is a brief for your manager, write it that way. Two: separate accuracy from boasting — before you soften a sentence, ask yourself if it’s true. If yes, leave it alone. Three: find a translator — ask a friend, colleague, or AI to read your draft and push back where you’ve gone small. Four: keep an evidence file year-round — not a brag file, an evidence file — so you’re not reconstructing a year from memory at the worst possible time. Your small step Take one thing you accomplished recently — at work, at home, anywhere — and describe it out loud to yourself. Notice how you frame it. If a colleague described the same accomplishment, would you think they were bragging? Probably not. So why does it feel different when it’s you? That discomfort is information. Pay attention to it. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

  8. Jun 9

    285- Pressure Is a Privilege: Why Resistance Means You’re Moving

    Have you ever committed to something — really committed — and then felt the pushback start almost immediately? The friction, the doubt, the voice in your head saying maybe this wasn’t meant to be? I used to think that was a sign something was wrong. I’ve learned to read it differently now. Pressure Is a Privilege The reframe starts here: pressure is not a punishment. It’s a privilege. Father Mike Schmidt’s podcast planted the phrase for me, and once I heard it, I started seeing it everywhere. Novak Djokovic says it too — pressure means you’re doing something important. The logic is simple: when there’s real pressure, there’s a real opportunity attached to it. When an athlete stops feeling pressure before a match, it usually means they’ve stopped caring whether it matters. The stakes and the pressure come together. You can’t have one without the other. Headwinds Are Physics, Not a Warning Here’s the reframe that I think changes everything: if you’re sitting still, there’s no resistance. Life is smooth. No friction, no drag, no headwind. But that also means you’re not moving. The moment you start heading somewhere, physics kicks in. A bicycle creates wind resistance. A car window pushed open feels the air push back. An airplane doesn’t fight headwinds because they’re the enemy — it fights them because you can’t get lift without resistance. You can’t gain altitude without headwinds. The headwind doesn’t mean you’re going the wrong direction. It means you’re going. Where Self-Help Gets It Backwards A lot of mainstream advice says: if it’s hard, something’s wrong. If there’s struggle, maybe you’re not cut out for this. If things flow easily, that’s confirmation you’re on the right path. I think that’s exactly backwards. Ease can mean you’re not stretching. Comfort can mean you’re shrinking. No resistance can mean you’re not moving at all. The reframe: resistance is not evidence that you’re doing something wrong. Resistance is evidence that you’re doing something enough — something real, something that has weight and stakes and consequence. Nobody gets significant pushback for staying exactly the same. God Trains in the Hard Places For those of us who are people of faith: the resistance isn’t the absence of a blessing. It’s a training ground. Every person in the Bible who was going somewhere faced headwinds. No one had an easy ride of it. God doesn’t refine us in comfortable places. He refines us in hard ones. And if you’re not facing any resistance right now, it’s worth asking honestly — are you actually moving anywhere? Not a judgment. A question I’ve had to ask myself too. Four Practical Things to Do When Pressure Hits Because knowing that pressure is a privilege doesn’t make it feel like one in the middle of it. Here’s what helps. First, name it — say out loud, this is resistance, this is what moving feels like. That single act breaks the panic and shifts you from reacting to observing. Second, ask a better question — instead of “is this a sign I should stop?” ask “what is this resistance telling me about where I’m going?” The pressure becomes your curriculum. Third, don’t confuse hard with wrong — some of the most right things you’ll ever do will be genuinely hard. Hard is not a verdict. And fourth, stay in motion — no heroic surges, no giant leaps. Just don’t stop. The pressure is not stronger than your next step. Stay Out of the Harbor Sailors know something most of us forget: the storm doesn’t care where you are. It will find you in the harbor too. Staying still doesn’t protect you from hard things — it just means you face them without any skills, without any momentum, without any ability to tack left or right. When you’re moving, even slowly, you start to develop instincts. You learn to read the water. You start to angle into the wind or away from it. The very forces that would capsize you in the harbor become the forces that carry you through. The breeze isn’t warning you. It’s training you. Jill’s Links http://jillfromthenorthwoods.com https://www.youtube.com/@startwithsmallsteps https://www.buymeacoffee.com/startwithsmallsteps https://twitter.com/schmern Email the podcast at jill@startwithsmallsteps.com By choosing to watch this video or listen to this podcast, you acknowledge that you are doing so of your own free will. The content shared here reflects personal experiences and opinions and is intended for informational and inspirational purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, life coach, or mental health professional. Any habits, strategies, or suggestions offered should not be considered a substitute for professional medical, psychological, or counseling advice. Results vary — small steps look different for everyone. You are solely responsible for any decisions or actions you take based on this content.

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About

Start With Small Steps is a practical, thoughtful podcast about making meaningful progress in everyday life—without overwhelm. Each episode breaks big ideas into small, manageable steps you can actually use, whether you’re working on habits, health, productivity, faith, or personal growth. Instead of chasing quick fixes or perfect systems, this podcast focuses on steady change, reflection, and realistic action. You’ll hear clear explanations, relatable examples, and simple frameworks designed to help you think better, choose wisely, and keep moving forward—even when life feels complicated or slow. Start With Small Steps is for anyone who wants growth that fits real life: small actions, honest reflection, and progress that lasts.

Information

  • Creator
    Jill from The Northwoods
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    293
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
  • Show Website
    Start with Small Steps