Sometimes the tiniest action can bring about the biggest changes.

Have you ever felt that making a life change would simply be too hard to do? Maybe you’ve tried to quit smoking or change another habit and found it almost impossible to do. I was taught to believe that big changes require big effort. It is as though somehow I had to EARN whatever life change I wanted – big changes would require big investment in order to earn whatever it was I wanted. Ugh!

A study from Yale University (with collaboration from scientists in Turkey) published in the journal Nature Genetics, discovered that a tiny mutation on a single gene causes the human brain to develop the deep fissures and convolutions that increase its surface area and allow for rational and abstract thoughts.

I call that some amazing Return On Investment (ROI)!

Further, this illustrates that sometimes in nature, the tiniest changes in the right place can bring about amazingly huge changes elsewhere. The “trick” to making substantial changes with minimal effort is in choosing the best strategy at the best time in the best place. Thousands of years ago, nature made a minimal change to the right place at the right time that created an advantage for the person so changed, who went on to pass on his/her genetic change to descendants who passed on that tiny change… etc. – making us who we are today.

I’m encouraged to know that nature can do big things with little actions. Maybe I can, too.

Study Authors: Murat Gunel, Tanyeri Barak and Kenneth Y Kwan of Yale. Other Yale authors include Angeliki Louvi, Murim Choi, Ying Zhu Saliha Y?lma, Mehmet Bak?rc?o?lu, Ahmet Okay Ça?layan, Ali Kemal Oztürk, Katsuhito Yasuno, Richard A Bronen, Shrikant Mane, Richard P Lifton, Nenad Šestan and Kaya Bilgüvar.