Lay a brick each day and in time you’ve built a castle.
You might scoff at the idea of doing 10 push-ups a day or not eating that piece of cake now. Because, what does it accomplish, nothing right? And you are right because it will barely change anything. But it’s the consistency that gets the results.
What you have to do daily isn’t hard. But it’s hard to stay consistent because each day feels insignificant.
Your friends only start to notice after you’ve put in the work for a long time. At this moment, they want to know how to get the results. Meanwhile, they don’t see that you’ve been working for a year.
‘You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.’
— Warren Buffett
Intense or Consistent
Look around you. What do people do if they want to get in shape? They start building up motivation until they are ready to take intense action. However, they would improve more with consistency.
They decide for example to go to the gym four times a week. When the motivation wears off after a month they quit and stop going to the gym completely. They would’ve been way better off if they just went to the gym one time a week for a year. This way, you’ll build a strong workout habit. With this habit as the foundation its easier to add another workout on top of it and slowly increase the frequency over time. But you’ll often hear objections like going to the gym one time won’t make any difference. People rather fantasize about going to the gym 4 times a week than actually going 1 time.
Shortness of Life
People say life is short, but it ain’t that short. An average person will live for 78 years. Use the time you’ve got and think longterm. Focus on things you can see yourself doing for 10+ years.
Write 100 words every day. Invest 10% of your income every month. Think longterm.
You can’t change in a day. But you can change a lot over 5 years. Do small things consistently and you will get the results.
You have 365 opportunities a year to add a brick to your castle.
- My newsletter took two years to gain 50+ subscribers. I see it as a 10-year project.
- It took me 2 years before I started interacting onTwitter with other people.
- It took a year of CrossFit and multiple years of messing around in the gym before I started being consistent and started to lose weight and started getting fit.
- It took me 3 years to build a video portfolio that I could leverage into a good internship.
- I launched this website in 2014 but started the blog in 2017 and only started to write in 2019.
These aren’t even impressive examples because I’m just starting out. But I’m already building a critical mass. I’m building a stack of papers that will be hard to catch up too.
So, what small thing can you do consistently that will help you tremendously in the future? Can you start right now with a tiny action?