Do you want to be a super-achiever in life?
Do you need a simple system and mindset that will help that result to become your reality?
Understanding the Compound Effect will assist you in hitting the highest of goals with comparative ease.
The Compound Effect is the accumulation of small increments of more, until the small increments together add up to a lot.
It’s a few painless disciplines that when implemented will assist with reaching the highest goals with ease and predictability.
Using momentum and self-discipline, day by day adding a very small amount to whatever you do, or just having the persistence to carry on with what can sometimes seem like pointless tasks, will one day add up to an achievement on a gargantuan scale.
You can’t lose 40lbs in a week, it takes many weeks of constant exercise and diet to do this.
It’s unlikely that one marketing campaign will bring you all the work you need.
Taking your wife out once a year is not going to make a happy marriage.
Reading one book on a subject will not make you an expert.
Playing football once a week will not get you into a premier league team.
So if you are serious about living an extraordinary life, understanding this principle will enable your dreams by carrying out fairly ordinary routines.
So what is the compound effect exactly?
To put it simply in monetary terms, imagine you had £1000 in your savings account and you gained 5% annual interest on that £1000, giving you an extra £50 or £1050 at the end of the year.
Doesn’t sound like much really does it. Is it even worth worrying about?
The following year you would earn 5% interest on £1050 which would give you an additional £52.50 and a total of £1102.50.
But the compound effect of adding on those small increments each year would mean that on year 10, your original £1000 would be worth £1628.89, not bad eh?
Now that’s assuming that you never saved another penny in those 10 years, what if you saved £1000 every year, didn’t touch it and let the compound effect take place, do the math, it makes saving worthwhile.
Now if you just took out that £50 to spend it on widgets……Bang goes the additional growth.
Small everyday decisions backed with a little self-discipline and persistence will shape your life and take you to the place you plan to go.
It’s the smallest decisions, which when repeated over and over, compound into an unstoppable momentum toward an ideal.
Choosing to exercise every day, choosing the right meal every time and deciding not to go out for beers every week are some of the decisions that an athlete may choose in order to become the best he can be.
Just one deviation from the plan will alter the trajectory by a minute degree and alter the power of the compound effect, taking him away from his goal.
The decisions he has to make are not life changing decisions, after all, a couple of beers on a Friday isn’t going to make him unfit, but understanding the compound effect, the athlete knows that this will take him at least one step backwards, reducing the power of that constant building upon strength that he has spent the past months or years building.
It’s an exact science that never fails to produce results.
How many people do you know that go out in January and buy all the latest gym clothing, a new gym membership and start training, only to burn out and give up in the first month?
Whereas running for 10 minutes each day doesn’t seem like it’s going to make much difference and doesn’t really take much of an effort. However, if this easy task is repeated every day without fail, you’re going to achieve your weight loss goal much faster than the person that went to the gym and is still paying that membership months after they stopped training.
The chances are that you are going to increase your 10 minutes to 15, then 20 then 30 as you find the steady pace manageable, further compounding your results.
David Beckham understood this when he stayed behind after training in his Manchester United days to practice his free kicks.
He continued compounding his practice until he could predict where the ball was going to go virtually every time he kicked it.
The result? He became one of the most successful English footballers of modern times and became a role model for kids who heard his story of how he became so good.
Warren Buffet understands the effect. He resists the temptation to invest in “The next big thing”. The majority of the investments he makes in Berkshire Hathaway are with small consistent growth businesses such as airlines, supermarkets, food companies and credit card companies.
He understands that small increments of growth added in a consistent pattern will beat the unpredictable ups and downs of risky trading.
The same principle will also take you to failure if you compound the bad habits and practices such as wasting money, eating badly or failing to exercise.
Every day progressively you will get a little worse until you find yourself fat, skint and unhappy.
The age-old analogy of the water pump is a prime example of the compound effect.
When you pump water from a well using a hand pump, it can take what seems forever for the water to work its way up the pipe, for the pressure to pull the heavy liquid up from the ground into your bucket.
Many give up before the water appears, they go off looking for a place where water comes fast and easy.
But once you have it flowing, it comes thick and fast and doesn’t stop coming until you stop pumping.
“There is no magic bullet or secret formula” said bestselling author Darren Hardy in the opening lines of his book ‘The Compound Effect’.
“By implementing small good habits over time, anyone can achieve their goals and get the success they want out of life”.
By maintaining healthy, positive and energetic habits, the compound effect will one day transform seemingly ordinary results into a tipping point where you realise just how good/fit/wealthy you have become.
Here are the top 10 quotes from Hardy’s Book:
Quote #10): “Never take advice of someone with whom you wouldn’t want to trade places.”
Quote #9): “I’ll win because of the positive habits I’ve developed, and because of the consistency I use in applying those habits.”
Quote #8): “You only need to take a series of tiny steps, consistently, over time, to radically improve your life.”
Quote #7): “Everything in your life exists because you first made a choice about something. Choices are at the root of every one of your results. You make your choices, and then your choices make you.”
Quote #6): “The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not.”
Quote #5): “Track every action that relates to the area of your life you want to improve. All winners are trackers.”
Quote #4): “Step by step, day by day, your choices will shape your actions until they become habits where practice makes them permanent.”
Quote #3): “When the reason is big enough, you’ll be willing to perform almost any how”.
Quote #2): “A daily routine built on good habits and disciplines separates the most successful among us from everyone else.”
Quote #1): “Ask yourself each day: If I only did 3 things today, what are the actions that will produce the greatest results in moving me closer to my big goals?”
Where can you apply the compound effect in your life?
Are there things that you know you should be doing but you always find a reason not to?
Are they the things that when added up and carried out persistently over time, would make a real difference in 1, 2 or 5 years’ time?
