I’m a firm believer that it’s the small things in life that lead you to where you are now and where you are going to be in the future.
Not those “life-changing” events. Nope, just the long chain of small things that you choose to do every day.
Notice that I said “you choose” because your life is the way it is because of the consequences of millions of choices you have made.
If I ask you right now “Are you responsible for your life?” I am sure most people would say yes. However, if I asked, “Are you 100% responsible for your life?” I expect some hemming and hawing. Excuses as to why they are not 100% responsible could range from their parents made them this way, or ‘the government’. Many of those same people would then complain and point fingers at someone or something else to fix their perceived problems.
Some people have been waiting for that other thing to ‘fix’ them when they only need to point that finger towards themselves. Every single day they make a choice to allow whatever is wronging them to affect them. Every day they choose to live at some level of victimhood.
Maybe you don’t have deep issues, but have you ever blamed traffic for you being late? Have you ever allowed someone else to cause you to have a bad mood? Have you ever blamed a subordinate or co-worker for an error on a report that you are responsible for?
Any of these is not taking 100% responsibility for your life. Any of these is allowing you to believe that you are a victim of something.
But that is a defeatist attitude.
Traffic? You should have left earlier. Bad mood? Only you control your emotions. Erroneous report? You are responsible for double-checking the data.
You are an adult, and therefore are fully responsible for what you choose to do or not and how you choose to respond to what happens in your life.
No one else is going to fix your life. No one else is going to come along and say they'll make sure it all turns out alright.
You have to realize it is 100% up to you.
Say this out loud right now:
If I want it to be, it's up to me.
If you want to be happy, it is up to you to be happy. No one but yourself can give you lasting happiness.
It's the same for anything else.
Want to lose weight? You won't find it in a pill or surgery. Sure, you can get the fat sucked out of you from liposuction. But unless you change within, mentally, you will simply put that fat back on.
Want to be rich? Change your mental money mindset or even if you win the lottery or scored big on cryptocurrencies, you will probably lose it all. The number of lottery winners that are broke in just a few years is staggering. It is because they never learned that they needed to change their own attitude towards money.
HOW TO GET STARTED
Hopefully I have got you to realize that anything you want in life is up to you alone to make happen.
But it isn't going to happen overnight. No, like I said earlier, the accumulation of millions of choices has led you to where you are today. So the only way to right anything in your life is by starting to make millions of tiny choices towards your desired goal.
Desire. Yes, you have to have a burning desire. An undying fire within yourself that wants your goal.
My goal is to be financially free. I live every day towards making this happen. Every choice I make I ask myself does this bring me closer to financial freedom?
But why?
I want to own my time. I want to be able to freely pursue my other goals. By achieving financial freedom I will then be able to more fully focus on the next goal on my list.
My desire for financial freedom burns hot inside me. It is my goal, my focus, my WHY.
It is not “I would like to be financially free one day.”
If you only would like something, then you won't have the power to stay the course over the years it takes to achieve it. I will not wake up tomorrow and have my goal. It is still hundreds of thousands of tiny choices ahead of me. Many of those choices is between the easy road that leads me further away from my goal, or the hard choice that leads me closer.
If my WHY is not strong enough, eventually I would break and start taking the easy road.
This is how people start their new years resolution strong, but a month later they have already given up. They merely liked the thought of their goal, not truly had that fire inside of them for it.
You need to have WHY-POWER. Find yours first, or you will not make it.
STRENGTHEN YOUR WHY
The number one thing I have learned that helps anyone on the path towards their goal is to track it.
Humans have this ability to forget all the little things, the incremental changes around them.
Tracking it all gives you the ability to see how far you have come.
When I say track it, I mean every single transaction. Trying to lose weight? Track everything you eat and every single workout.
Want to get out of debt? Track every time money leaves your account or your pocket – no matter how little. Track the amount you reduce your debt every time you make a payment.
Track everything that is related to your goal.
To be able to see it laid out in your tracker is a powerful way to stay strong in the pursuit of your goal.
But it also has the ability to stop any straying off course.
If I see something for sale that I want, often the simple act of having that expense appear on my credit card is enough to stop me.
For instance, say I feel like having a snack and a soda. If I wasn't tracking every cent of my purchases, I might mindlessly buy those things and be further away from my goals. But the act of having to enter that expense is enough to stop me from doing so. This same example works for those whose goal it is to lose weight.
In the book “Your Money or Your Life”, the authors recommend you track every single expense for a month. They say to do this because they have seen just how powerful tracking is.
In the financial sphere, often it is seen that people don't have an income problem, but a spending problem.
Tracking helps them realize this. Once you realize something, you can take steps to fix it. Small steps, over time.
Tracking gets you on track.
Conclusion
- Understand that your life is the result of the millions of choices you made – good or bad.
- Stoke a fire inside yourself so hot that it won't go out – find your WHY.
- Track everything related to your desired goal – track it no matter how small.
Remember that personal change is a marathon, not a sprint. You are in it for the long haul, it can take years. To keep that fire burning, track everything. Looking back on how far all the small changes have brought you will give you strength to carry on. It will even stop any straying before it happens.
