Why Small Gains Make a Difference

The Good News and the Bad News

You want it now. It doesn’t matter what it is, waiting is not your favorite activity. If you want to be rich, you buy a lottery ticket. If you’re hungry, it’s either fast food or the microwave. Welcome to today’s culture. What about the idea of delayed gratification? The idea of strengthening your delayed gratification muscles may not be in your future plans. But if it was the difference between success and failure, would it be important then? The truth may not be what you want to hear, because it is the difference. So what is the good news then? You can develop it.

Do Small Gains Add Up to Anything That Matters?

You’re not in this life to accomplish little things. What you want are results that matter. The purpose of accomplishing small things each day isn’t to alter your goals or give up on your dreams. It’s just the opposite. What you want is exactly what you’re going to get. It’s done one small step at a time. If you improved 1% each day, how much better would you be in a year? It’s a compounding interest problem. You start with where you are now, call it 100% of the present, or in math terms 1. Tomorrow, you’ll be at 1.01, 1% better than where you began. Then, after a year the compounding interest formula says you’ll be 37 times better than where you were when you began. That’s improvement that…