Over the weekend I grabbed some lunch with a good friend of mine and we reminisced on the 3 months since we’d last seen each other properly.
A lot had changed. We used to train triathlon together almost weekly, going on long rides and practising our swim form, but now our priorities had shifted, spending an afternoon with one another became an active decision. Hearing each other’s achievements, experiences and life plans was both a beautiful reflection on how far we’ve already come and a pressing reminder that everything around us is always changing.
As we each learnt of friends moving to the other side of the world, promotions taking us down new career paths and business projects starting to pay dividends, we reflected on the long games we’d been playing and the ones we intend to pursue into the future.
It’s the lessons from this discussion that I want to share with you today.
Our Actions Compound
Every decision we make has consequences.
Some, like whether to hit the gym today, have small seemingly meaningless outcomes. While others, like whether we should quit our job and go travelling, have quite clear life-altering end results.
With this in mind it is often the latter that we attribute the greatest proportion of our brain power, setting forth both our conscious and sub conscious to mull over the endless ‘what ifs’.
But, it is actually the former that can often end up mattering more than we realise over the long-term. For those seemingly small outcomes don’t just add up, they multiply. Thereby creating an exponential effect beyond what our brains can truly comprehend.
Which became evident both in the catch-up with my friend and in the lives of my peers as they start to enter their late 20s.
Sometimes the effects are obvious…
Like with fitness where deciding to go the gym a few times a week really starts to add up over a year. At first nothing much changes. You get your fair share of DOMs. Your body hurts. And the progress can feel frustrating. But then as you keep turning up, refining your form and consuming all the educational content available you start to improve. Before you know it your body has changed. You can lift more. You can run for longer. And those clothes that were a size too big now fit nice and snug.
But, for others the effects are less obvious…
The best example I’ve now started to notice is my reading habit that I picked up properly in 2018 where I worked my way through the grand total of 4 books. Since then it’s been 8 books in 2019, 21 books in 2020, 29 books in 2021, 30 books in 2022 and currently 21 books in 2023, combining together into 113 books in the last 6 years. Which, besides being a drop in the ocean of the 129 million books written since 1440, has actually started to make me feel well read. So much so that I often find myself heading into most bookstores I pass only to browse the non-fiction section, count the number of books I’ve read and smile to myself with satisfaction.
(it’s a little sad, I know).
Embedded Habits are Infinitely Easier
The hardest part of any new project is starting.
For once we’ve overcome the original inertia, the small decisions that compound over our lifetime will become second nature. No longer do we need to commit our daily dose of willpower to see them through.
Instead our habits will do the heavy lifting as they become increasingly reinforced by the person we’ve already become…
Maintaining is easier than building
We often want infinite growth. To continuously be better than yesterday. But, sometimes life happens. We slip up. Other things get in the way. And that’s ok.
But along the way we must remember that…
Staying healthy is easier than getting healthy.
Keeping clients is easier than finding new clients.
Holding onto wealth is easier than building new wealth.
Meaning that when we’re going through a challenging time we must maintain the ‘bare minimum’ to continue cruising at our current altitude of progress. If we neglect what is required to ‘keep things ticking over’ we’ll face an uphill battle to get us back to the level we once were at.
You become a new person
Somewhere along the way between when you first started and the milestone you set out to achieve you become a new person.
As someone who signed up for an Ironman in 2021 having never completed a triathlon before I felt this experience first-hand. At the beginning I was a runner learning swimming and cycling to complete a race. After a year I was a triathlete training 15-20 hours a week, investing £175 p/m into a coach and competing at the world championships. And now I’ve completed the season of races and decided to commit the next 6 months to marathon training I consider myself an endurance athlete, who is constantly seeking the next test of endurance that scares me.
Along the way of embedding new habits I identified with different labels which made it infinitely easier to continue compounding the small daily actions that I knew would create the results I wanted.
You can do the same. Just make sure that the identities you choose support your goals and don’t restrict you from taking on new ones.
Results amplify credibility
As the little actions start to add up, so do the results that follow…
The daily training leads to faster times.
The weekly content leads to more followers.
And, as in my case, the 89 weeks of back-to-back newsletter writing leads to 730 subscribers (or that’s so far at least).
Which not only powers your competence-confidence loop, but also amplifies your credibility as someone who keeps themselves pretty fit, has a lot of followers or a sizeable newsletter audience seems worth listening to.
Meaning that as the results start to stack up, your existing progress becomes not just an additional step towards your goal, but an exponential reason why someone would listen to you, follow you or even buy from you.
And once the effect really starts kicking in it becomes hard to know whether you’re actually good at something or whether you’re just already popular.
But by that point does it really matter?
Direction Matters more than Speed
Long games really do matter. They lead to pretty much everything - big or small - that is meaningful in life. If we want a happy relationship with a supportive partner, enough money to travel the world financially free or to change the lives of millions then we must continue to sacrifice the short-term in pursuit of the long-term.
But before we do, it’s vital that we decide to play the long game that is truly aligned to who we are. For getting good at the wrong thing means climbing back down from the mountaintop we just spent the last 5 years ascending before we can take the first steps along the path we want to pursue.
This might feel overwhelming. And can often lead to procrastination on perfectionism. But, if we remember that there is no right choice. Only the one best aligned to who we are right now in this present the moment. And if we keep acting on the voice inside of us and playing long games aligned to our ever-changing selves we’ll alwvisualise value exponentialays find a way to adapt our current progress to our future ambitions.
It might just take a long time.
Nice one Charlie! Keeping a habit is even more important when creating things. As any one of the things you make can give you an outsized return over all others.
Stephen King has dozens of books but is an international bestseller because of three of them. Same with any creative.
You just have to keep taking shots at goal.