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Beat your Goliath with what you already have

Six traits a shepherd boy used against a giant, and how each one is built in an ordinary life.

The Practical Power of Small
Defeating the Goliaths in Your Life  ·  Vince Perryellis
DVFZ Training Consultancy Services, 2022  ·  7 chapters in 7 ideas

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SMALL WEAK SPOT GOLIATH confidence · motivation · courage · commitment · wisdom · spirituality

01 The problem

Every life has a Goliath, and it comes from one of three places

The book uses one word for the hard things in a life: Goliaths. A financial crisis, a serious illness, a relationship falling apart. Everyone has either met theirs, is fighting it now, or will meet it later.

They arrive from three directions. Circumstances you were born into, such as socioeconomic status or a disability. Other people, including family, partners, bullies and the toxic colleague at work. And yourself: the victim mindset you feed, the pride that will not let you admit a mistake.

Sorting the source is not academic. Some of these you can solve. Some you can only meet well. Knowing which one you are holding decides what you do next.

The problems that arise in our lives are essentially the Goliaths of our lives.The Practical Power of Small, Chapter 1
THREE SOURCES CIRCUMSTANCE OTHER PEOPLE YOURSELF status, disability family, bullies, work pride, victim mindset YOUR GOLIATH name it, then sort it ONES YOU CAN SOLVE OUT OF YOUR CONTROL different problems, different responses
Three sources feed one problem. Naming which one yours came from is what tells you whether to solve it or to stand it.

02 Trait one  ·  what you believe

Confidence is built from evidence, not from talk

Confidence is a state of mind with no doubt in it: faith in yourself and a fair judgment of what you can do. The book is clear that it does not arrive from a slogan. No single sentence changes a life overnight. It is slow and it is cumulative.

David did not walk up to Goliath cold. As a shepherd he had already fought off lions and bears to keep his sheep, and he told King Saul exactly that. The giant was simply the next animal. Each earlier win was the evidence that made the next fight thinkable.

Two habits build it, according to the book. Say no when you mean no, without apologising for it. And stop rehearsing the worst outcome before you have even tried, because nothing has happened yet.

You never touch your true potential until you challenge yourself to go beyond imposed limitations.Roy T. Bennett, quoted in the book
Do this now

Write down one hard thing you have already come through. That is not a memory, it is evidence. Keep it where you can see it before the next hard thing.

LIONS BEARS GOLIATH half the battle is already won CONFIDENCE EXPERIENCE OVER TIME → each win is the evidence for the next one
Confidence is the running record of what you have survived. It is why the same giant looks impossible to one person and manageable to another.

03 Trait two  ·  why you move

The reason has to be big enough to outlast the work

Motivation is simply the reason behind an action. The book splits it two ways. Positive motivation pulls you: you study hard because you love your parents and want them proud. Negative motivation pushes you: your boss says hit the target or you are fired.

Both get you moving. Only one lasts. Fear produces a fast spike and then leaves you overwhelmed and hopeless, doing the work halfheartedly. A reason you actually want produces energy, joy and success you can sustain.

David had four reasons stacked together: to save his family and his people from slavery, to answer an insult to his God, to claim the reward King Saul had offered, and, honestly, to prove that a shepherd boy could do it. Four reasons are harder to talk yourself out of than one.

Do this now

Pick the easiest goal on your list, not the biggest, and start there. Then write down who it is for. The book warns that a purely selfish reason is the one that runs out first.

NEGATIVE POSITIVE lasting joy, sustainable success halfhearted, then it stops MOTIVATION TIME → intrinsic: you do it for your own satisfaction extrinsic: you do it for the outcome it brings
Threat is fast and short. A reason you want is slow and long. Both curves cross, and everything the book cares about happens after that.

04 Trait three  ·  what you risk

Courage is not one thing, and it starts with confidence

Courage is not the absence of fear. Everyone has fears. Courage is recognising something worth having and going after it anyway, which is why the book puts confidence first: you can only face a difficulty once you are convinced of what you can do.

It comes in four kinds, sorted by what each one puts at risk. Physical courage risks your body. Moral courage risks your standing when you defend someone unpopular. Social courage risks your reputation, which is why speaking in public terrifies people. Emotional courage risks being hurt, and it is what lets you love someone knowing it might end.

Recognizing a worthy objective and moving on to attain it despite fear characterizes courage.Lord, 2010, cited in the book
CONFIDENCE comes first COURAGE Physical Moral Social Emotional you risk your body you risk your integrity you risk your reputation you risk being hurt same move, four different things at stake
The kind of courage a moment asks for depends on what it is asking you to lose. Naming that first makes the act smaller.

05 Trait four  ·  what you keep

Commitment is what keeps going after the feeling stops

A promise is a sentence. A commitment is a working arrangement you can run when nothing about it feels good. The book gives it four steps, and the fourth is the one people skip.

Set the goal, so the commitment has a shape and stops feeling like a restriction. Write the plan down, so you are reminded of it rather than relying on memory. Get started, which is the hardest part. Then reward yourself, because a commitment you never celebrate is a commitment you will quietly abandon.

David committed to two things and never traded one for the other: to God, and to the Israelites and his family, who had never made much of him. Commitment does not require that people notice.

Commitment is much more than a promise.The Practical Power of Small, Chapter 5
1 2 3 4 SET GOALS MAKE A PLAN GET STARTED REWARD IT shape write it down begin again COMMITMENT more than a promise doubt, mockery, the easier way
Four steps that make a commitment survivable. The line across the bottom is what the loop is for: pressure arrives and the arrangement holds.

06 Trait five  ·  what you choose

Wisdom is refusing the weapon you cannot use

Knowledge is information. Wisdom is knowing which piece of it applies right now and having the nerve to act on it. The book's sharpest example is the moment before the fight.

King Saul offered David armour and heavy weapons, the obvious kit for a warrior. David turned them down. He had never worn armour and could barely walk in it, let alone fight. He took a sling, a staff and five stones, the tools he had handled every day as a shepherd. The choice that looked foolish was the only one he could actually execute.

The same logic runs the book's story of the farmer who gave his prize seed away to every neighbour. Pollen crosses fields. Poor seed next door becomes poor seed in his own. Wisdom there was seeing the whole system, not just this season.

Wisdom comes with age, and power comes with wisdom.The Practical Power of Small, Chapter 6
WHICH WEAPON? THE EXPECTED CHOICE THE ONE HE MADE Sword, spear, full armour A sling, a staff, five stones what a warrior is meant to carry what he had used every day he could not move in it he was already skilled with it Not what looks strongest. What you can actually use.
The fork David faced. Wisdom is matching the tool to the skill you already have, rather than to the size of the problem.

07 Trait six  ·  what you belong to

Spirituality makes the situation bigger than the giant

The book defines spirituality broadly and without pressure: sensing that there is something more than yourself, that you are part of it, and making an effort to contribute to it. For some people that is a church, a mosque or a temple. For others it is prayer, meditation, art or nature. The book says plainly there is no wrong way to do it.

What it changes is what you are measuring by. David looked at Goliath and did not read the situation by appearances. He read it by what he believed he belonged to, and the arithmetic came out differently.

Three things come back, according to the research the book cites. Steadier emotions when life goes wrong. Confidence, because a practice usually brings a community with it. And peace, which the book says you can build with small acts of kindness done daily.

Do this now

Do one small kindness today that nobody will report and nobody will thank you for. The book treats that, not grand gestures, as the practical route to peace.

YOU you contribute Steadier Confidence Peace emotions from community from small kindness SOMETHING LARGER THAN YOU read the situation, not the appearance
An exchange, not a shelter. You put something in, and what comes back is the steadiness that makes a giant look ordinary.

08 The whole book

Six traits, none of which is size

David beat Goliath with confidence, motivation, courage, commitment, wisdom and spirituality. Every one of them is available to someone with no advantages at all, and every one is built the same way: in small pieces, before you need them.

Name it

Find the Goliath

Problems come from circumstances, from other people, or from you. Sort yours, then decide whether it is one to solve or one to stand.

Build it

Six traits, not one

Belief, reason, risk, staying power, judgment and belonging. They reinforce each other, and none of them arrives fully formed.

Start it

Take the small step

The book repeats one instruction: begin with the easiest thing on the list, then move up. Small steps first, big ones later.

Goliath was bigger the whole time. That was never the thing that decided it.

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Adapted from The Practical Power of Small: Defeating the Goliaths in Your Life
Vince Perryellis  ·  © 2022 DVFZ Training Consultancy Services  ·  68 cited sources in the source edition