It started with a teaspoon—okay, maybe a tablespoon. I’d like to tell you that this habit swept into my life like a desert monsoon, sudden and dramatic, but the truth? It crept in quietly, slow as the moon climbing over the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on a hot July night. It wasn’t the kind of change I’d normally write about in my journal, let alone an article, but it became the foundation for something bigger than I ever imagined.

Let me paint the scene for you: six months ago, I was the queen of overthinking. Not the glamorous, head-in-the-clouds kind, either. I mean the mundane, paralyzing, “Did I really say that thing five years ago in that one coffee shop?” kind. It stretched into everything—especially relationships. If you’ve ever mentally storyboarded every possible outcome of a romantic text (complete with subplots and character arcs), you’ll understand. I convinced myself that deep, self-sabotaging analysis could somehow make life—and love—neat and predictable. Spoiler: it didn’t.

But then something deceptively simple shifted. And it all started with my morning coffee.

Choosing Stir Over Storming

I’d developed this theatrical morning habit where I’d stand at the kitchen counter, furrowing my brow at my French press like it was a diabolical machine. While waiting for the coffee to steep, I’d sip water, scroll news headlines, and construct imaginary arguments over everything that might or might not go wrong that day. I’d worked myself into such a “prepare for battle” mindset that even my dog, Jasper, gave me some serious side-eye.

One morning, as steam curled upward from a mismatched mug my mom had painted, I read—half out of curiosity, half out of procrastination—about the Japanese practice of kaizen, which roughly translates to “continuous improvement through tiny, consistent steps.” Turns out, kaizen isn’t about flipping your world upside down overnight. Instead, it’s about making incremental changes that roll their way into your life like tumbleweeds, quiet but relentless.

I decided I needed my own version of kaizen—something grounding, simple, and steady. So I set a goal: to stir my coffee slowly. A low bar, I know. But stick with me. Every morning, I would watch the cream swirl into coffee like watercolors on wet paper, no phone, no multitasking, no imaginary debates with fictional people. Thirty seconds. Eyes on the mug. That’s it.

The Ripple Effect (Pun Fully Intended)

At first, it felt silly. Did this finite little moment in my day mean anything? But the more I leaned into it, the more stirring my coffee became ritual, then metaphor. I began to realize how often I was rushing into relationships in the same performative way I rushed through my mornings—trying to micromanage outcomes before they even happened.

Here’s the thing about slowly stirring your coffee: you have to be present for it to work. And presence, I realized, is magnetic far beyond the kitchen countertop. What if I approached my relationships with the same slow, thoughtful energy? What could that look like?

Here’s what started to happen:

  • Listening, Really Listening: Ever notice how a hard pause before responding in conversation feels like a tiny revolution? Instead of racing to fill conversational gaps or nervously decoding every word someone said to me, I let myself linger in the space of what they were actually saying. Maybe intimacy starts not with sharing, but with receiving.

  • Releasing the Script: My old tendency was to pre-edit every interaction. (“Don’t say that, Lila. You’ll sound weird!”) But now, I reminded myself of those slow, latte-like spirals: order over chaos doesn’t have to be instant. Spoiling a moment by over-curating it became less scary than never entering the moment at all.

  • Savoring ‘Good Enough’ Moments: You know that small dread that bubbles up when things feel imperfect? I started experimenting with not trying to “fix” everything on the spot. My dad used to say, “Even O’Keeffe's paintings knew when to stop—don’t push the brushstroke too far.” This applies to long silences, mismatched love languages, and “Let me get back to you” texts.

Every Habit Has a Soulmate

Eventually, the habit grew tentacles—not in the creepy, sci-fi way, but in an interconnected, life-enhancing kind of way. Stirring my coffee extended into stirring my inner world instead of just storming through it. Here are a few other micro-hacks I built around this practice:

  1. Closing Open Tabs (Literally and Metaphorically): Each night, I shut down all but one or two browser tabs on my laptop and imagined doing the same for my mental chatter. Could that one unresolved worry wait until morning? 99% of the time, it could.

  2. Turning Default Plans Into Shared Rituals: My mom—an artist herself—taught me that rituals engrave the ordinary with meaning. I started inviting people to experience small rituals with me. A gray winter afternoon with friends turned into a candle-pouring experiment at the gallery. Zoom calls ended with a moment to show one another our favorite object near us, no explanation needed.

  3. Redefining ‘Progress’ in Love: What if the marker of success in a relationship wasn’t size or speed—who moves in fastest, who grows the “perfect” family—but the quality of what’s shared in even the smallest moments? Stirring coffee. Watching sunsets. Allowing the quiet to be sacred instead of awkward.

Let Your Tiny Change Become Your Compass

Let me be clear: I’m not saying three whirls of a spoon will solve all your problems. There were still days when overthinking whirred back into my system, revving louder than Jasper wagging his tail at a visitor. But this habit opened space in my chest, space that used to be blocked by imaginary obstacles.

The irony? The simpler my rituals became, the more intricately connected I felt—to myself, my relationships, and even the creative flow I’d let get dusty for a while. In slowing my mornings, I found clarity for things much bigger than them.

If there’s one takeaway from my small experiment, it’s this: don’t underestimate the power of tiny, boring things. Whatever quiet habit you land on—pouring water for your plants with extra care, breathing deeply at stoplights, choosing to sit on a bench instead of walking in circles—let it become your invitation to presence. The kind of presence that spills outward, touching every corner of your life.

Because sometimes, the moment you stop storming through life is the moment everything meaningful starts swirling together.