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Great successes are created from the little acts and habits we do every day. Small mistakes like wasting time or eating just one more piece of junk food, if repeated over time, can eventually turn into great failures and disasters.
If you try to fly a plane from North America to Japan but your aim is just a few degrees off to the wrong direction, if you never corrected your course you’ll likely land in another country entirely. Small mistakes snowball into something worse over time, and small good habits snowball into great things.
Here’s why.
“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature.”
— C. S. Lewis
Where do great achievements start?
“Wealth is largely a result of habit.”
— John Jacob Astor
The greatest buildings in the world like the Burj Khalifa, Taipei 101, Lotte World Tower and more were built block by block, one piece at a time. Before then, the foundation was dug, one scoop of earth at a time. And even before then, it had all been planned and drawn one stroke of an architect and engineer’s pen at a time.
Olympic marathons and great journeys were completed and won, one footstep at a time.
Great paintings like the Mona Lisa, The Starry Night, the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling and many more were created, one brush stroke at a time.
Life is built from the little things we do. Our futures, whether we become some of the greatest leaders heroes in the world, or we end up as some nobody or some nameless criminal, it will all depend on how we spend our days. What we do in every moment will determine our future.
What are your habits?
Unhealthy habits like eating a bit more junk food can slow down your metabolism and make you tired and lazy. That makes you exercise less and less, and gain more and more weight. As you keep eating “a little bit” more every day, eventually, you’ll end up with a really sick body and really high doctor’s fees.
On the other hand, spending a few more minutes on healthy habits like walking or exercising, drinking one more glass of water, eating a few vegetables every day, will grant you better health and more energy to become more productive at work and in life.
Regularly going on “retail therapy” trips and buying things you don’t need can lead to you spending more and more money. Eventually, you can start spending more than you earn and get into debt, and soon debt can grow unmanageable if you don’t control your spending habits. An accident, a job loss or something else can become a gigantic financial emergency.
On the other hand, learning to spend less and spend wisely and learning how to invest can give you abundant savings accounts for emergencies and opportunities. You’ll have a nice cash buffer against most of life’s problems. And eventually, you’ll be able to provide a much better financial life for your children and grandchildren (and for your retirement too).
Again, while small mistakes if repeated over time can grow into huge problems, small good habits if repeated can turn into amazing successes.
Before we end this article, here are three final lessons you might want to read and remember:
“You’ve got to think about the big things while you’re doing small things, so that the small things go in the right direction.”
— Alvin Toffler
“The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.”
— Ernest Dimnet
“We are where we are and what we are because of our fixed habits. And we may be where we wish to be and what we wish to be only by the development and the maintenance of our voluntary habits.”
— Napoleon Hill, The Master Key to Riches