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The Initial Decision
Here is a recipe for success:
- Figure out what you want most in life.
- Create a clear, tangible, observable, measurable vision around that.
- Write that vision down as a set of goals.
- Identify what you have to do to get to those goals.
- Make the decision TODAY to start doing the things you need to do to build the life you want to build.
- Never leave the site of a decision without immediately taking massive action towards its achievement – Take action NOW!
There are a thousand variations of that recipe in every self-help book, every business planning book, every personal development book, and in a million posts and reels and shorts and long form posts and every other form of content you can think of.
I've gone through a few major life shifts over the past few years, and recently realised that one of the most important things in my life – writing – is not getting as much attention as I would like. I evaluated various options, and decided that, for where my life is at right now, the best approach would be to start writing again, an hour every morning, early – before the workday starts.
The day I made this decision, the decision gave me a significant sense of clarity regarding how important this is to me. This made it easy for me to be up early the next morning to write. By the time I had done my hour's writing on that first morning, I had a sense of fulfilment and accomplishment.
Sisyphus is in all of us
On the 4th day, I made this comment in my journal:
Already the novelty is wearing off, the sense of change in a positive direction is being lost.
I recently listened to a podcast where the host quotes from Peter Kaufman's talk on Multidisciplinary Thinking. He talks about three universal truths he has discovered, one of them being compound interest.
He points out that most significant changes happen over a long time, and they happen through compounding. People, however, hate being consistent. He uses the image of Sisyphus pushing his rock halfway up the hill, and then letting go, so tomorrow he has to start from the bottom again. We start something, get all excited, and do what needs to be done – but then we take a break, and decide we'll get back to this later. In that time we lose momentum, but we also lose much of the traction we've gained, and the rock goes back. So we start again.
He then makes this comment, which has been haunting me:
We overvalue intensity, and undervalue consistency.
So we do this big push.
Stop.
Start again.
Big push.
Over a long time, consistent effort at a fraction of the intensity would achieve more results.
The Illusion of progress slowing down
What I am beginning to experience today is part of the reason this happens. The first day I got up and started to write, I had a significant sense of accomplishment. This was making the change that would change my life. There was this clear change.
Waking up early.
Writing.
This was a clear, observable change from the pattern of my life up to that point. A pattern interrupt.
Very clear, visible change.
But already – just on Day 4, the sense of notable progress is waning. The thing with compounding is that the daily benefit is incremental – hardly noticeable. Waking up early and writing on the fourth morning is exactly the same as it had the previous three days. Nothing new has changed.
Think of it this way:
Day 1: An hour's writing on that day was effectively infinitely more writing that I'd done over the previous two weeks or so, and the idea of this becoming a consistent new habit was a hundred percent improvement over the ad-hoc approach I'd had until then.
Day 2: Another hour's writing adds 100% to yesterday's writing.
Day 3: Another day's writing is 50% more than the total writing of the past two days.
Day 4: Another day's writing is now 25% more.
Day 5: Down to 20% more.
Day 6: 16% more
By the time I get to day 30 – only a month in – that hour of writing adds 3%.
I am progressing at the same rate – but it feels to me as if my progress is slowing down, because relative to the body of work done to date, every one day's work is getting smaller and smaller.
So that is the first thing that happens. The increments of adding to that compound just feels smaller and smaller as you continue.
The second thing that happens is that the time from when the vision and the motivation seemed so clear gets buried under the sands of time.
Here are a few tactics that have worked for me over the years, to keep important things compounding:
Start what you can sustain
Bruce Krebs once told me, “Never start something that you cannot sustain.”
With other words, do not value intensity over consistency. Decide what you know you will be able to keep up, and start doing that. For example, for me, for where my life is at right now, that is an hour's writing every morning.
I could have started with more – but I would not have been able to sustain it. Consistency over intensity.
Start what you can sustain.
Keep the Vision clear
I have a very clear vision of where I believe 5-2-50 needs to be in 2039. I am not 100% sure of the way to get there, but I believe God has given me the promise that if I write faithfully, He will build the movement and the business around me. I have no clear idea of how that will work.
Part of the reason why I currently only commit an hour a day to this, is because of this lack of clarity. If I had more clarity, I could probably commit more time to this. So this was an important realisation for me. The analogy I have here is a bit of the Israelites walking through the desert. They did not know the way. But every day they walked a bit. That's kind of where my life is at, and I'm trusting that as I keep following God's instructions as closely as I can, there will come a time when I will find the way becoming clear – I will reach the promised land, as it were.
In the meanwhile, I have that vision clear in front of me. I visualise it every day, and I think about how what I write relates to that vision. The exact path is not clear to me – but I know that I am building in the right direction.
Experience has taught me that when I consistently move in the best way I know, in the direction of the vision, the path becomes clear over time.
Regularly zoom out and review the longer term progress
Whilst every day's incremental progress is getting relatively smaller and smaller, the overall result of what you have been doing is growing. So instead of looking at how much difference today has made, regularly look back over a longer period of time.
For example, at the time I am writing this article, I have finished the first draft of the manuscript of a book I'd been working on for months. When I was writing ad-hoc, the book hardly made any progress. I have now been writing every morning for 11 days, and in the middle of those 11 days was Easter Weekend. The sense of momentum the days before that had created motivated me to spend most of that weekend writing. In these nine days I'd made more progress than the six preceding months.
So as a side note – intensity in the middle of consistency is great to give you an extra push every now and again. But be careful that intensity does not undermine the consistency.
If I just looked at what I'd accomplished today, it would just be a few more edits to the book, and this article.
The same goes for looking forward. If I keep this up, I will have written more than 300 hours by the end of the year. Specific, focused writing linked to the 5-2-50 vision. I write other things as well. I journal almost obsessively. But the hour every morning is specifically focused on writing related to building 5-2-50. In 300 hours I will finish the book, I will spend time thinking about how I want to publish and market it, and I will begin to write and probably publish more regularly on LinkedIn and maybe begin to publish on other platforms.
The point is that 300 hours of consistent daily writing has the potential to accomplish something more significant than an indefinite amount of inconsistent hours.
Zoom out. Look back. Look forward. This will help give a better perspective than just today's incremental effort.
What you cannot do every day, is unlikely to gain any significant traction
Looking back over my life, both in my personal life and in the countless projects and improvements and operational activities I've done in my life, I think I can say this about anything significant we are trying to build:
Whatever you cannot commit time at least an hour to every day, is unlikely to gain any significant traction.
If you are implementing a major change in your business, and you are only going to be able to give it attention once a week, there is a very high likelihood that the project will drag out and eventually fizzle out.
Yes, I know there will always be a thousand things vying for your attention that you need to react to.
But when you realise that building requires daily focus, you will soon realise that you can only have a very small number of pro-active things that you are systematically driving forward.
So pick those carefully.
Make sure they are the most important, highest impact items.
Move them forward every day.
If you do this, you will see the power of compounding in your life and in your business.
May God turn his face towards you and your endeavours today
Ashton
Grow Your Business
5-2-50 is a Movement of Christian small business founders dedicated to creating a million good jobs by growing 25 000 small businesses of at least 5 people, that have been running for at least 5 years, to 50 people or more, to ZAR 10 million NPAT, and to Free the Founder from the day to day grind of the business.
To achieve this, we need founders, facilitators, coordinators, creators, influencers and church leaders.
If this excites you, see how you can get involved: https://www.5-2-50.co.za/
