I'm currently listening to a fantastic audiobook The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. I have not finished it yet but I'm slowly getting into the concept. The big concept is really this: the little things are the big things.
Darren tells a story about three men: one man, let's call him Norm, does nothing to change his life. Another man called Chubby decides to eat an extra dessert one day of the week, spends a little bit of money on coffee one extra day of the week and spends one extra day of the week watching his favourite show on TV. Finally, the last man is called Awesome and he decides to cut out an extra dessert one day of the week, save a little bit of money on coffee one extra day of the week and spends one extra day of the week reading personal development and finance books. After a month, the changes in each man are not noticeable. After a year, the changes are minuscule. After several years, the changes are still small but could have been blips in measurements. After a few decades, the changes are very much noticeable. Norm has done nothing to change his life and therefore has not changed. Chubby has grown a few extra pounds, has a little less money than Norm and generally has not improved in his life. Finally, Awesome has lost weight, has more money than Norm and has grown leaps and bounds in his knowledge and personal development.
The little things are the big things.
Here's a few more examples:
- When you go and exercise, you don't exercise once, kill yourself and then quit exercising. You don't see any benefits that way (or at least nothing long term or even short term). You get the most benefit from exercising on a regular basis.
- If you are investing your money, even a small amount of money (say $10 every week, or the price of a coffee every work day) can improve your finances. If you saved $10 a week for 45 years, you would have $165,776 source.
- Moving a stone or a pebble every single day for a few years to a new place can move mountains
- Learning a new vocab word in a foreign language means that you will learn 365 words in a year or 3,650 words in 10 years (and depending on the language, that may be enough to have functional knowledge of the language)
- Coming up with 10 ideas every single day has worked for James Altucher to change his life around - I bet it would do the same for you
- Being grateful and finding one way to show your appreciation and love to your partner can help change a failing marriage into a successful one by not changing anything else
What do you think? How are you slowly improving every single day?