Daily writing prompt

If you had to give one life-changing tip, what would it be?

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One life-changing tip:

Small amounts add up. Whether that’s writing, studying, doing yoga, saving money, eating a little healthier, or going for a walk. Five minutes walking is better than none. One carrot stick is better than none! Five dollars saved is better than none.

I used this tip a lot during nursing school. I’d write out study cards and tuck a couple in my pocket. When I had some down time, I’d review the material, even if I just had a few minutes.

There are times right now in my current school program when I want to work ahead on my next paper but have very little time to spare. (Or- I’d rather be doing something else, lol). So I’ll do a small bit of work- download the template for the week, type in my name- do something to get me started. Then when I come back to it, whenever that is, I at least have a start. It’s motivating to not have to start from zero. Oftentimes, I end up doing more work than I thought I was up to.

The same goes for money. I started automatically transferring money to a small retirement savings and it’s grown to a couple thousand dollars without me even thinking about it or missing that monthly deposit. I have my normal retirement account too through work which is also automated, but I can’t get over how much that little one has grown through $5 increments.

This is the main premise for The Slight Edge. That those little gains, made over and over, time after time, build up to big results. The little decisions we make, those small actions we take, over and over, they get us there. In his book, Jeff Olson talks about how it’s easy to do those small things, but it’s also easy not to do them. For example, it’s easy to save five bucks. It’s also easy to not do it. It’s not a life-changing decision- in the moment. It doesn’t seem like a big decision, in fact. But those are just the decisions and actions that can get us to where we want to go.

Which means that we need to know where we want to go. 🙂

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However, those little choices, built up over time, can be life-changing.