Change My Life: Small Habits that Have a Big Impact
The deep-rooted use of this saying goes to show that people truly are resistant to change. It involves a process to effectively change your habits and adopt a new routine, and the idea of embarking upon this journey can be exhausting.
However, the good news is that it is within your power to make the decision to change your life.
However, the good news is that it is within your power to make the decision to change your life.
Thinking back to my health 15 years ago versus my health today, it wasn’t one thing that I changed overnight that made both my physical and mental health do a complete 180.
There were so many small factors that came together over the course of several years that had an enormous impact on my wellbeing. In hindsight, I can see the progression that each small habit change made, but the whole change certainly ended up being greater than the sum of its parts.
So let’s look at how change really occurs.
When you think of the word “compounding”, your mind may go directly to money and positive returns over time. As you probably learned in school, compounding in finance refers to the process of an asset’s earnings slowly generating as it gains interest. Compounding can also work in the opposite direction if you’re losing money on an investment.
But this principle also works outside of the financial world.
Just like your investments compound with time, so do your everyday habits. If your habits are positive, they will take you in one direction, and if they are negative, you will follow a different path. Your habits are the “compounding interest” that lead to your personal development. Just like money accumulates through positive compounding interest, the impact of your habits increases as you repeat them. However, it is only when you look back months or years later that you can recognize the valuable impact of your habits or the cost you have paid.
In this article, I am going to talk about the compounding effect of small habit changes and how positive behaviors can work together to have a great impact on your life. Then, I will give 40 examples of small habits that you can incorporate into your life that can contribute to a big difference in the long run.
How Change Really Occurs
One quick thing to note before we get into this is the juxtaposition between this idea of making small changes to eventually reach a long-term goal and our current society’s infatuation with instant gratification, hacks, and quick fixes.
The truth is, nothing that can be acquired immediately is sustainable, and if you want to make a true impact on your life, you have to put in the work that is required. If this weren’t true, everyone in the world would be physically fit, rich, and happy.
Another thing to keep in mind is that the immediate satisfaction you get from eating that burger and fries outweigh the idea of the long-term benefits of eating a salad at the moment that you are faced with the choice. When you give in to your bad habits, it doesn’t feel like it will negatively impact your future at that very moment. However, all of your seemingly insignificant behaviors add up over time to create who you are as a person and define what your future will look like.
Consider this: If you’re trying to lose weight and you do nothing aside from replacing your afternoon soda with sparkling water (or cutting out 150 calories per day in some other way), you will be reducing your caloric intake by 54,750 calories in one year, which is equal to almost 16 pounds. And think about what you could achieve if the number of calories you cut out was even more than that.
You will gain success in your small, everyday decisions that, in the moment, will give you no tangible results. However, the compounding effect over time can be radical. Even though the results of your efforts are profound, in the moment, your actions don’t feel significant. The changes you make each day are so subtle that they’re almost undetectable, which means you have to work consistently and have faith in the fact that your results will only show up down the road. This in itself requires patience, dedication, and commitment through the process.