How taking action leads to compounding effects

It’s a common theme in humans that we will often feel we need to make a change somewhere, or that doing something different will make us feel better and give us a more fulfilled life. While this is such a common thought, we often never actually make a change and carry on exactly the way we are. We then start to feel even worse about ourselves because not only are we not making changes that we know would put us in a better position to move our wellbeing forwards, but we also reinforce the belief that we will never be able to change after another failed effort.

We believe there are many factors that account for this and it is never just a “this is what I’m doing wrong” issue. However, one of the issues that we’d like to cover is just starting with something.

Taking action is definitely one of the most important steps we can take when wanting to achieve anything. After all, how can we expect anything to be done when we don’t do anything? Seemingly small and insignificant actions aren’t only that. They lead into bigger things down the line. Enter the compounding effect.

The compounding effect dictates that results from actions don’t add together, they multiply. Knowing this we are probably only a couple of small steps away from making a massively influential change in our lives. Those small and insignificant steps are exactly that, but only in isolation. As soon as we attach some of those together we quite quickly get a snowball effect which propels us forwards in our endeavours.

However, piecing these behaviours together is oftentimes daunting and puts us into the common all or nothing cycle of starting and failing. If we can practice some patience and understanding around the fact that maybe the first action won’t lead to much, the second will lead to a little bit more but then the third and fourth will lead to increasing amounts, we might have more success and avoid that constant all or nothing approach. 

The practical application of this theory would be that we need to take action, but to make it a seemingly small and insignificant step to start. Understand that in isolation there will likely not be a massive shift in results immediately, but in time we can add a couple more actions in and then see our results rapidly improve.

We often overestimate where we will be in a month, but underestimate where we will be in a year.

Take a small step now. Whether that’s planning a small walk, changing your breakfasts, trying to sleep a little earlier or even reaching out for help. 

The results don’t add up, they multiply.