I want to bring amazing changes in my life, I want to switch jobs for a good salary, I want to be a good musician, I want to be a good singer !! We all aspire to achieve so many things in this life, the sky’s the limit but why don’t we live up to those expectations, those aspirations which we gave a thought at a particular juncture in our life. Why do people get burned out or exhausted while following those aspirations?
Quote: “You cannot change your future, but you can change your habits and surely your habits will change your future !!” – Dr. Abdul Kalam
We all chase for that big moment, that breakthrough moment in our lives might be losing weight, getting a job in a big MNC, or winning an important game !!
Question to you:- Do you really make those small improvements on a daily basis ??
I was going through the book Atomic Habits written by James Clear. He has done extensive research on developing habits, decision-making, and continuous improvement.
Here is how the math works given in this book:- If you can get 1 percent better each day of the year, you will end up 37 times better by the time you’re done. Conversely, if you get 1 percent worse each day for a year, you will be doomed or will decline down to zero.
What starts as a small win or minor setback accumulates into something much more.
Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. The same way that money multiplies by compound interest, the effect of your habits multiply as you repeat them.
We make a few changes, but the results never seem to come quickly and so we slide back into our previous routines. Maybe those changes make little difference on any given day and yet the impact they deliver over months and years can be enormous.
Let’s try to understand the impact of small habits by going through this airplane example/analogy:
The impact created by a change in your habits is similar to the effect of shifting the route of an airplane by just a few degrees. Imagine you are flying from Delhi to Mumbai. If a pilot leaving from Delhi adjusts heading just 3.5 degrees to the south, you will land in Bangalore instead of Mumbai. Such a small change is barely noticeable at the takeoff, but when magnified you end up landing hundreds of miles apart.
Success is a product of daily habits, not a once-in-a-lifetime transformation.
Habits are like a double-edged sword, they can work for you or against you so please be mindful of habits.
Takeaways/Nuggets:
- Your outcomes are a lagging measure of your habits.
- Your weight is a lagging measure of your eating habits.
- Your knowledge is a lagging measure of your learning habits.
- These tiny battles as part of daily habits will define your future self.
- Slow growth is always better than no growth.
