There is an old story about a frog and a bucket of water. It illustrates the law of deterioration. If you take a frog and drop him into a bucket of boiling water, what will the frog do? Jump out! Instantly, the frog decides: "This is no fun - I'm out of here!" But take the same frog, drop him into a bucket of cold water, put the bucket on the stove and gradually heat up the bucket. What then? The frog starts out relaxed, and a few minutes later he says to himself: "It seems warm in here." Soon you have a cooked frog.
The moral of the story? When change is gradual, the frog doesn't notice what's happening until it's too late. Like the frog, we can also be fooled, and suddenly it's too late! When you overspend your budget by a few dollars one day, it's no big deal. But if you do it again tomorrow, and the next day, and the usually isn't one big disaster all at once. It's a bit today and a bit tomorrow then one day they find themselves in big trouble and ask, "What happened?"
Little things add up to big things - like the drops of water that wear away the rock. The Frog Principle is telling us to watch the trends. Each day, we ask ourselves, "Where am I heading? Am I fitter, healthier, happier, and better than I was last year?" If not, we need to change what we're doing. Here's the scary thing - there's no standing still. You're either gaining or slipping.