Find Your Trim Tab Moments

How Small Changes Lead to Great Transformations

Author

Allen Jiang
September 25, 2024

There are moments in life when a small action or decision you make will lead to significant change with a long arc of impact for years to come. These are transformational trim tab moments.

Trim Tab as a Metaphor

Buckminster Fuller describes trim tabs as a metaphor for life:

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Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do.

Think of the Queen Mary—

The whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there’s a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trim tab.

The trim tab.
Image credit: Climate 200.

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It’s a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all.

So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab.

Society thinks it’s going right by you, that it’s left you altogether. But if you’re doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

So I said, call me Trim Tab.

A small trim tab creates massive change.

Just like how this tiny trim tab can alter the course of a great ship, you have trim tab moments that can change everything. You may not see it immediately, as it takes time to turn a massive ship, but it all starts with moving the trim tab.

These opportunities for small changes, maintained over time are all around us, sometimes disguised as seemingly insignificant choices. What do you think may happen if you:

  • Decided to read a new genre for a few minutes every day?

  • Exercise a little today, a little more tomorrow, and a little more the day after?

  • Reflected daily on your day and what you will do tomorrow to improve?

  • Used social media less and less?

  • Met someone new for a brief moment?

  • Reached out to an old friend?

In expeditions, a small 10 degree difference maintained over time is the difference between arriving in North America or South America.

Small changes lead to great transformations.
Image Credit: Google Earth.

If you seek big change, start small. What might you do today that will set a transformation in motion? What are your trim tab moments?

BE THE CHANGE
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