You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

– Darren Hardy

I used to always choose the easy route in life. I wanted to live comfortably, without any struggles, even if it meant giving up some of my desires.

”It’ll be too much hard work, I don’t want to go through that!” I told myself.

”I’m fine where I am. I don’t need anything else,” I would say while looking enviously at someone’s healthy, athletic body or designer bag.

Growing up in a modest family taught me to be humble and not desire too much from life. I thought that having a lot of money, attractiveness, and power would make you full of yourself, and it was better to settle for mediocracy.

Occasionally, I would attempt to chase after my desires. Desiring to have an attractive and healthy body, I tried to exercise for a few days.

”I’m not seeing any results, does this even work? Whatever, let’s quit and watch movies instead.”

I tried to start meditating, after hearing about the benefits of meditation.

”I don’t feel any different from how I was before. Why is meditation such a big deal?” I thought.

I expected immediate results from the actions I took and gave up if I didn’t see immediate progress. This caused me immense frustration and I ended up right where I started. ”Maybe I’m not good enough,’ I thought to myself. ”I’m just a lazy person after all.”

By learning and growing internally more, I then realized that all good things, take consistency and dedication to appear in our lives. It’s not a matter of how capable we are or not.

I learned that there’s no such thing as a magical button that we can press to give us that dream body, money, or success immediately.

I began to work towards my goals every day, even when I didn’t see results. I trusted the process. Gradually, bit by bit, I began to see positive changes in my life. The progress was small at first, but then it snowballed.

I now look back, having accomplished my goal, with love for myself for persisting even when I felt like quitting. I’m so peaceful and proud of myself for achieving my desire.

There’s nothing wrong with desiring more from life. I realized that we’re on this Earth for a limited time, so I chose to live a life where I could be truly fulfilled, instead of one where I was modest to the point of unfulfillment.

I learned all this from a wonderful book called ‘The Compound Effect’ by Darren Hardy. In his book, he explains the real, genuine principles for success – that’s helped him and millions of other successful people create lives they love – and is way different from what the media teaches.

I’ve compiled a short, to-the-point summary along with a detailed explanation you can read below to fully understand how you can achieve the success you long for as well.

Short Summary of The Compound Effect:

• The secret ingredient to success is consistency – success lies in the daily habits you do. These daily habits, done over time, can drastically decide your entire future.

• Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

• Having poor daily habits (like eating junk food, watching TV) may feel pleasurable at the moment but will bring pain in the future.
• Good habits (like eating healthy, and going to the gym) will feel painful to do but will produce a positive impact on your future.

• Take 100% responsibility for your choices and outcomes in your life – no more victimhood, finger-pointing, or blaming.

• The only difference between people who are successful, brilliant, healthy and poor, insecure people is in the choices they make. All successful people have good habits.

Lesson 1: Understanding How The Compound Effect Works

The daily choices we make in our lives, even seeming inconsequential, will create a noticeable difference in a few years.

For example: Let us take someone named ‘Jack’. Jack has two friends- Sam and Jared. They are all about the same weight and are the same age. Jack, determined to look after his health, decides to start walking for about 2000-3000 steps each morning, burning around 100 calories each day.

Sam, wanting to relax a little, eats about 100 calories more and plops himself on the couch sleeping.

Jared doesn’t change much in his routine, and continues living as he always did.

About 3 months pass by. Jack continues to walk, Sam continues to eat more, and Jared continues his normal life. We don’t see much change in their physique yet, they all still have the same body size.

12 months pass by. Still not much noticeable change.

Now, after 31 months, is when we can really see the drastic change in their appearance.

Jack has now lost 27.1 pounds, and he’s now fit and much healthier! Not only that, but walking outside led Jack to make more friends who also exercise, which improves his overall mood. Brad is more fatter, and more lazy and grumpier from sleeping on his couch too much. Jared is exactly where he was 31 months ago, living the same life.

To sum up:

1. It’s important to be conscious of your daily habits and avoid negative habits to preserve your future.

2. You might not notice any big change when you do these habits right now, but in the long term it will drastically impact your life.

3. Starting a habit in one area of your life also affects the other areas. For example- Eating healthy not only improves your health but also increases your brain power and your energy levels. This makes you more productive at work and increases your chances of getting a promotion.

Lesson 2: Changing Your Dreams Into Goals Into Daily Habits.

• What are the goals you wish to accomplish? Why do you want to accomplish them? Write down the top 3 goals you want to achieve, within the time frame of one year.

• Now, start committing to small habits that will bring you closer to this goal. Goal setting is like, ”I want to lose 50 pounds.” Habit setting is ”I will walk for 1 hour each morning.”
• Give 100% of your attention to focusing on implementing these habits.

• Don’t start with habits that are too overwhelming, such as, ”I’ll go to the gym for 5 hours a day.”
• It’s important to start with small habits or else you’ll get too overwhelmed and quit early. Make the habits a part of your routine and not something you have to go out of your way to do.

Now that you have your top 3 goals, write down a list of all the Bad Habits that stop you from achieving these goals. It’s time to get rid of them.

Lesson 3: Removing Bad Habits:

• Avoid or reduce instant gratification – the actions we do daily that give us immediate pleasure but screw us over in the future.

• We’re all so irrationally enslaved by our bad habits, even when we know it harms us. It’s because indulging in bad habits in the present doesn’t have any negative impacts at all at the moment. Commit to breaking free of them.

• Your actions tell more about you than your words. If you say you prioritize your fitness but spend more time on the couch than at the gym, your behavior rats you out.

• Remove these bad habits by easing your way in – reducing TV time from 5 hours a day to 1 hour, and then completely quitting. Swapping white bread to eating only whole grain.

Lesson 4: Creating and Adding Good Habits:

• Once you’ve removed a bad habit, you’ll find that you have extra free time. What positive habit can you now add in so you can reap the benefits of the compound effect? Add in all the positive habits that will help you achieve your top 3 goals.

• You can add new hobbies that you’re interested in as well.

• If you feel like quitting, remember your WHY…the reason why you started to change your life in the first place. Feel the strong desire of how your life would transform if you accomplished your goal. Change is hard, and growth ain’t for weenies. But it will be worth it when you live the life you only dreamed of.

• Go for a Public Display of Accountability – Tell your family, your friends, co-workers, that you’re quitting a habit or starting a habit. By doing so you’ll know that you’re responsible for holding your promise, and everyone else will keep you accountable.

• Reward yourself occasionally! Reward yourself with a treat for keeping up the good habit, like buying dinner at your favorite restaurant, relaxing with a book, etc.

A final note:

”Don’t wish it was easier; wish you were better”

-Jim Rohn

It’s supposed to be hard. Showing up every day, and working hard towards your goals is tough. You’ll feel like quitting. You’ll wonder if it will be worth it. You’ll slow down, and be sick of it. But everyone else also faces roadblocks and adversities as well.

What separates the extraordinary from the ordinary is whether or not you choose to persist when faced with a hurdle. The person who persists will beat someone even with double the amount of talent.

Most people give up, but the ones that keep going are the ones that become successful. When you hit a wall, realize it’s an opportunity to separate yourself from the crowd, your old self, and emerge as a triumphant, strong, and best self.

I promise you, the rewards will be worth it. It’ll be more wonderful than you could have asked for.

The post How I’ve Used The Compound Effect to Transform My Life and Create Success appeared first on SreeTree.