Forget ‘New Year, New You’. It won’t last. It rarely does. Successful change is not rooted in reinvention. It is found in hard work over long periods of time.
The Greatest Misconception: The Quick Fix
Don’t wait for an epiphany
Lottery winners are catapulted into fortune and riches overnight. Britain’s Got Talent victors find their lives transformed with record contracts. But their success is short and their downfall painful. The media is partially to blame: we only see the sudden rise of stars and results of successful stories, not the process, doubt and frustration behind it. In football, we see the match on Saturday or Sunday, but not the week of ice baths and training leading up to it. What does this mean?
Our attention spans are shorter than ever: we want monumental change instantly.
The truth is, you don’t rock up to the mic and spit fire immediately. Books aren’t written first time round. “Success”, the marketer and best-selling author Ryan Holiday says, “like the proverbial sausage, is much less pretty when you see how it is made.”
Likewise, you will never realise the one thing you want to do, the one thing that will make you happy, fulfilled, successful. You act before you know and you figure it out as you work, explore, live.
“There will not be clarity. Not before, not during, not until well, well after” — Ryan Holiday
I propose two things:
- There are no quick fixes: instant transformation is unnatural, temporary, and can be damaging, if it exists at all. Don’t wait for the epiphany or the wake-up call that will transform your life. It will never be clear for us.
- Sustainable change occurs over long periods of time. Note, however, that change is difficult and hard, despite any appearances demonstrating otherwise. Change comes from small, deliberate, consistent actions over time.
There are no quick fixes
There is no epiphany or moment when we’ll realise what we want. We act before we know. We figure out things as we go along. That’s how life works. It’s a process.
Many cannot handle the obligations and pressures that come with instant transformations; lottery winners too are amongst the unhappiest on the planet. Maybe we need to accept that we’re not ready to be catapulted to success? Perhaps we could handle it for a day or two, but how about for a year or even the rest of our lives?
Even science evolves slowly. Indeed, paradigm shifts do not happen overnight — alternative explanations must be painstakingly sought after, constructed and researched. As Max Planck stated:
“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Likewise, with “quick fixes”, there is no solid foundation to fall back on. Lottery winners are materially richer, but psychologically they remain the same. There is no successful system in place for them to fall back on, no habits that allow them to sustain such a lifestyle. They momentarily increase their spending but their fortune dwindles and their lives quickly resort back to the baseline their actions had set for them.
Would you be able to manage all the benefits but also threats that come with your new position? You want to play football for Man United, but could you train three times a day every day? Or perhaps you’d like to write a book — would you stay at home on a Friday night to write? There are many sacrifices you would have to make. Is that what you want? Is it worth it? Despite seeing only the results on social media, change is not easy. Far from it.
Change is a long process
We are constantly told that, “Rome was not built in a day”. But do we really understand this? Do we really understand that change happens over long periods of time? Do we understand that our first, second, or even third attempt is going to end in disaster? It’s going to take a lot of mistakes to get anywhere close.
Warren Buffet’s fortune was built over 78 years of investing and researching. Stephen King’s first novel was rejected 30 times before it was considered right.
Robert Greene noted that, “change can be pleasant and even sometimes desirable in the abstract, but too much of it creates an anxiety that will stir and boil beneath the surface and then eventually erupt.” He continues, “whilst we understand the need for change, knowing how important it is for institutions and individuals to be occasionally renewed, we are irritated and upset by changes that affect us personally.”
He points us to a fundamental truth:
No matter what seems to be, change is a slow process involving years of hard (and smart) work, networking, brainstorming, and effort. The little things add up.
It also points us to the great rule of behaviour change: start small. Often we have a burst of motivation which we rightly want to take advantage of, so we strategize and plan how our entire lives are going to change. After all, it seems all so full of possibility when we think about it.
Thus, we focus on intensity, not consistency. Whilst we may succeed in our efforts to run 10km a day for the first 3 days, life inevitably pops up and we make excuses because it’s difficult and unenjoyable. The abstract has now become reality and it’s difficult. We need something to keep us going. We need it to be so easy that it’s more difficult to reject than to perform. That’s why we have to start small.
And it is the accumulative effect of small actions: getting your butt in the chair, writing, singing, or producing something, that creates work you can be proud of. “Many mickles make a muckle”, as George Washington would repeat again and again.
When I read a book, like “The 48 Laws of Power”, I make notes on passages, quotes or ideas that stand out to me and by the end, I’m left with pages and pages of notes. What took 5 seconds to write each time accumulated with each repetition and each chapter. That is the beauty and power of the compound effect.
Key Takeaways:
What are the tiny, minuscule things that you can improve in your own life? Be excited about it. Perhaps you want to write a book, write a paragraph each day. Once you’ve written on that page, you’ll look at it and think, “this is going to be part of my book one day.” That’s an exhilarating feeling that you can replicate for all your other goals.
Other tiny actions you can take:
- Writing an email to a loved one every other day.
- Getting a pullup bar for your door frame and doing a pull up each time you walk into your room.
- Spending 10 minutes on your budget at the end of each week.
Look for opportunities to tweak and improve everything you do but don’t look for quick fixes. There are none. Everything is rooted in hard work, persistence and a bit of luck. Put all your energy into making progress every single day. Do not be disheartened if there appears to be no progress: with each repetition, the results accumulate.
The stoics believed that the cultivation of such minuscule, small habits and actions, over the period of a lifetime, was what constituted greatness. You can achieve greatness.
It starts with that first, minuscule action.
