Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas
Smart, small choices + consistency + time = radical difference. Darren Hardy
In October of 2020, I wrote about the compound effect. The theme at Toastmasters was “Looking Forward” where do we see ourselves in five years. I said I wanted to be a grandma, have more novels published, and a line of children’s books written, illustrated, and published. I’m beginning to make audacious goals, for too many years I wasn’t willing to commit to any goals at all. Darren Hardy in the compound effect tells us decisions shape our destiny and the effect of our decisions compound.
We’ve all heard if we set a little money aside in our youth and watch it grow with compound interest it will outgrow our savings at an older age. Our habits compound, if we eat 100 calories more than we burn off every day it will compound into something we won’t be happy with. If we do a little exercise every day it will compound into something we are happy with.
We often think it is big things that shape our lives, the big decisions we have or haven’t made and they are important, but the little things we do daily are what we have real control over.
Taking control of our life, our finances, and our fitness may seem daunting. I was looking at mutual funds we started long ago. The good thing about them was we could put in a small amount of money every month. The bad thing is they charge a 2.69% fee to do it. A couple of years ago I took some money out of it and put it in a self-directed TFSA investment account and bought some good Canadian dividend stock. I am told that by reinvesting my dividends I can watch the magic of compound growth over the next few years. Marc Lichtenfeld author of “Get Rich With Dividends” tells us the secret is to hold the stock long enough to see the compound effect work instead of selling and buying something that looks more promising. Buying and selling cause many to lose money in the stock market. The buy-and-hold folks, holding good strong dividend companies are who make the money over time. They aren’t fancy stocks, they chug along, but it is the chugging along decade after decade that makes the money. Dividends, paid upon dividends, paid on the dividends-dividends add up.
It’s not the big things that add up in the end; it’s the hundreds of thousands or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary. Darren Hardy
Since going the Indie Author route I’m not waiting for a publisher to tell me if my work will be published, or if the sales weren’t good enough on my first book they wouldn’t publish the second one. I’m now working on my third novel and my second children’s book. I am producing the work, making it the best I can, and putting it out into the world. Where it goes once it is out in the world I don’t know, but I’ve done what I have control over by creating it.
Remember the experiment with a glass of water where we keep doubling the amount of water and the glass is only half full when the next time it doubles it is full to overflowing. This is one of the reasons we get disheartened when we watch the small imperceptible growth of one drop becoming two drops, and two drops becoming four until eventually, one half becomes full. Often we give up before we start seeing results thinking it will never become anything at this rate, but because we quit we don’t know what it could have become.
Too often we sabotage ourselves by not accomplishing what we want to. We talk ourselves out of doing it; we think we don’t risk failure if we don’t try. But we can’t risk success if we aren’t willing to risk failure. Those who do well in life often embraced good habits, and those good habits compounded over time, and by having the courage to risk failure, they achieve success.
We can rest assured the compound effect is working in our lives. Is it working in a way we are happy with?
The complete formula for getting lucky: Preparation (personal growth) + attitude (belief mindset) + opportunity (a good thing coming your way) + action (doing something about it) = luck. Darren Hardy
The real cost of a four-dollar-a-day coffee habit over 20 years is $51,833.79. That’s the power of the compound effect. Darren hardy
A daily routine built on good habits and discipline separates the most successful among us from everyone else. A routine is exceptionally powerful. Darren Hardy
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