{"id":166,"date":"2026-10-15T08:49:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T23:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/?p=166"},"modified":"2026-10-15T09:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-15T00:18:28","slug":"ichiro-small-steps-en","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/?p=166","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Words | Ichiro: Small Steps Take Us Somewhere Extraordinary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/?p=64\" lang=\"ja\" hreflang=\"ja\">\u65e5\u672c\u8a9e\u3067\u8aad\u3080<\/a> | English<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Disclosure: This article contains affiliate advertising.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBuilding up small things is the only way to reach somewhere extraordinary.\u201d<\/p><p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><cite>Ichiro, wording quoted on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yunker.jp\/fatigue\/survey18\/\">official Yunker website (Japanese)<\/a>. English translation prepared for this article; not an official translation.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When we set a big goal, our feelings grow bigger, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Exercise every day starting tomorrow. Begin studying something new. Produce different results at work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yet what we can actually do today is smaller than we imagined. Read a few pages. Finish one preparation. Revise a little of what we have written.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCan something like this really make a difference?\u201d When facing that question, I want to remember Ichiro\u2019s words.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Think about big results through small actions<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.toshin.com\/proverb\/story-m.php?id=74\">Toshin\u2019s introduction to this quotation (Japanese)<\/a> also presents these words about building up small things as a remark from the press conference after Ichiro broke the Major League Baseball single-season hits record in 2004.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What I want to notice is that, when speaking about a great result, his words begin with \u201csmall things.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It is not a shortcut where one extraordinary act takes us somewhere extraordinary. It is about building on the small things right in front of us.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I find encouragement here: even someone overwhelmed by the size of a goal has a place to begin.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Building on experience is more than repetition<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Suppose you write an article every day.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead of simply writing as you did yesterday, shorten today\u2019s opening. Fix a sentence that was hard to read. Check the source of a quotation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From the outside, each looks like a small task. But checking and changing things one by one gives you more to notice as you write.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What follows is my own interpretation of these words. Perhaps building things up means not only doing something more often, but also carrying yesterday\u2019s experience into today\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Even if something did not go well, thinking \u201cNext time, I will try this\u201d means the day does not simply disappear.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Do not judge today\u2019s step only by its size<\/h2>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of course, continuing small actions does not mean everyone will reach the same result. Circumstances, health, and the methods we choose also affect how we move forward.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I do not want these words to become a guarantee of success or an instruction never to rest.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead, I want to keep them as a reminder not to dismiss what we managed today as worthless simply because results are not immediately visible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You read one page. Checked one thing. Started writing one line.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On some days, that may be enough. When your energy returns, you can build on it again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The power of words lies not in erasing what we cannot do, but also in helping us turn our attention back to what we can.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Change \u201cI can only do something this small\u201d into \u201cI can begin with this small thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You do not have to produce an extraordinary result today.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Add one small thing that connects to the future. Let us try not to undervalue that one thing ourselves.<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-buttons is-layout-flex wp-block-buttons-is-layout-flex\"><div class=\"wp-block-button is-style-outline is-style-outline--1\"><a class=\"wp-block-button__link wp-element-button\" href=\"https:\/\/room.rakuten.co.jp\/room_7a1fa96c07\/items\">Explore my Rakuten ROOM (Japanese)<\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u65e5\u672c\u8a9e\u3067\u8aad\u3080 | English Disclosure: This article contains affiliate advertising. \u201cBuilding up small things is the onl &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/?p=166\" class=\"more-link\"><span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The Power of Words | Ichiro: Small Steps Take Us Somewhere Extraordinary&#8221; \u306e<\/span>\u7d9a\u304d\u3092\u8aad\u3080<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22],"tags":[42,34,30,37,33,35,38],"class_list":["post-166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-words","tag-en-ichiro","tag-en-quotes","tag-en-mood-small-steps","tag-en-taking-the-first-step","tag-en-power-of-words","tag-en-notable-figures","tag-en-working-life"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/image-50.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":173,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166\/revisions\/173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/127mhk.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}