magic pacts & investment math

I am grateful for every reminder lately of small commitments compounding over time into massive change.

I love seeing evidence and practical application of small, consistent habits being executed, celebrated, and reaching success.

You’re enough. Just as you are.

It’s enough. Anything is better than nothing.

Something small, over and over, with little pause or deviation is far more effective and lasting than something huge and impressive for a miniscule time, followed by a gaping break or derail in the opposite direction.

(Like crash diets followed by “falling off the wagon,” binging and going back to old lifestyles, and gaining all or even more of the weight back.)

Why is this so hard to come to terms with and wrap our minds around? Why don’t we want to accept and believe in the magic of small, everyday actions?

We certainly live in a culture where flashy, trendy, big shows of effort are rewarded and esteemed. This can make it hard to trust and believe our daily, tiny, consistent actions, no matter how small, will move great mountains eventually.

But that is the simple truth. Aesop knew: the turtle and the hare.

We are stacking bricks. One brick is very small. Totally manageable. So doable it seems laughable. It seems like one miniature brick could never make a difference.

But add a brick or two every day without stopping, and before long, you’ve built something grand. On the other hand, if you try to force and heave and will it all up there in a day or week or month, but then fall flat on your face and give up, your unfinished project sits incomplete and lacking impact.

I also love the idea that when we are focused on the practice, we will get much better much faster, because we aren’t focused on being good; we’re dedicated to taking good action. This is such a big difference. Expecting ourselves or our product to be excellent will impede our vision because it often causes imposter- and anxiety-paralysis, overthinking, stalling and believing we aren’t ready to take action. If we think we have one day to build the tallest, most beautiful wall, or one shot at getting our art just right, we’ll be so much less likely, willing, or enthusiastic to dive in. If, all along the way, we are just committed to doing the small actions over time that put us in a space of creating and learning and trying it again, to see what happens, we will — over time — hone our craft, our style, and our skillset. We will be building a body of work. Every small fraction adds up to a great whole.

Only if we stay focused on what matters. The practice. Stacking bricks. Showing up, even when it’s small. Believing in the big picture. One thousand reps. Volume. Doing the action, not waiting until the result seems ready.

Right now, I’m learning more Spanish on Duolingo, and I love the simplicity, ease, entertainment, digestibility, and gamification of the app. Duolingo really pulls you in. They make it fun. They make it competitive, addicting, bit-sized, and highly, highly doable. Do you have 3 minutes, anywhere in your day, when you can do a quick Spanish lesson? Of course. We’d be hard pressed to find a single person who literally cannot complete 3 minutes of language practice (or fill-in-the-blank). Duolingo requires a single lesson each day to keep your “streak” alive (not breaking the chain is a very important concept, for anything! No matter how small, just keep going, and try to stack up more check boxes than missed days!), and most lessons take 2-3 minutes. That’s it. Check. You did it! Great job. And often, once you’ve done 3 minutes, you want to keep going, for another 3 or maybe another 10 or 30. Being committed to just the first 3 keeps you engaged and showing up. That’s the biggest part of the battle.

Now, maybe 3 minutes is a little too slow of a pace for how quickly you want to progress in something. Sure, maybe your art will do better with half an hour’s attention everyday, or whatever the threshold is where your rewards start to show. But the point is, it doesn’t have to be hours everyday to add up to something meaningful and lasting. Maybe some days you do hit that multiple-hour mark! But I would argue that’s made all the more possible by laying off your expectations and demands and lowering the bar to include counting the tiny-step days as successes, too. If you are willing to keep showing up, even if for 3 minutes, the 3 hour sessions will start happening more often as well, only because you’re there, in the space and ready, prepared and open, in the habit and practice of your work and art, learning and accustomed to taking the action, not merely imagining it and putting it off for “someday.”

The first 3 minutes open the door. You’ll never get anywhere important without stepping through the door. Every day, make the magic pact with yourself and with the highest calling of your heart (or with whatever it is you are trying to learn or wanting to spend more time on) that you will at least step through the door. Whatever happens after that is fine. It will change from day to day. Sometimes you will love it, sometimes you’ll do it begrudgingly, sometimes the only good thing that will seem to come of it is that at least you tried, at least you got the door open for yet another day.

But that’s enough. It’s okay. Keep doing it, over and over, and you cannot lose.

It’s far worse if we only allow and expect hours or perfection — if we think of anything less as pointless or not worth trying — because then we’ll rarely, if ever, even start.

Starting — keeping it going — even in small increments produces so much more.

It’s basic investment math. Keep putting a little something in, no matter how small. Watch it multiply and grow beyond your wildest dreams.