I remember sometime when I was a younger kid, around 10.
I was in the kitchen with the rest of the family.
I was telling my family again, for probably the hundredth time, how I was going to be a big shot and own a business.
And my dad said:
"yeah....cool...maybe you should start by cleaning your F*cking room?"
I thought "He doesn't get it. He's stupid. He thinks small. I think big".
Time went by and I wasn't making much progress. I would start things and quit them, then on to something else. Not just as a 10 year old. As an 18 year old. As a 20 year old... it kept going.
I started noticing people would be more successful, and they would always focus on the small things more than anything else.
But I was stubborn.
And then I realized as I got older.... what is life really?
It's just a bunch of days.
We seem to have two ideas of life. One is real, and the other is some dream. I thought about some dream life a lot, and I bet you do too.
But we only ever live a real life.
One where we wake up, get out of bed, rub our eyes, take a shit, and figure out what we're going to do today.
We do some stuff, we eat, we chat with people, it gets late and we wind down, then we go to bed.
Just a bunch of those over and over. Only some things change.
What we do for the few hours. The people we are around. The place we are in. The food we eat. The place we sleep. The work we do.
And that's really all there is to life for the most part. Sure, maybe you go climb a mountain. Maybe you do some big adventure, but even when you do those things it's still a lot of the same in a strange way. It's that strange feeling you get when you're actually doing something that previously existed as just an idea in your mind. A weird thing happens when it becomes real. It becomes just a part of your day in an odd, casual way.
The important thing to realize is this:
Your life is just made up out of days.
A bunch of small little decisions and priorities, stacked up over and over.
Nothing big can ever be done. Only in our minds can we do big things, but in the real world we can only do a bunch of small things that add up. We can't "build a business". But we can file documents with the state. We can call a lead. We can sell our stuff to someone. We can build a website. We can put in the reps.
If you're dreaming big and not immediately turning your focus back to the miniscule decisions that make up your day to day life, you are royally F*cking up, expect to get slapped in the face.
When you only think big, you don't think little things are important. I thought it was water under the bridge. "Who cares my dishes are dirty? I'll get a maid when I'm rich."
A lot of people say "how you do one thing is how you do everything" and it never really meant much to me to hear that.
When it really hit me is when I thought about it another way.
The way I think about it is this.
"If I can only do one thing at a time, and make one decision at a time, and live one day at a time....
then the entirety of my success in this particular endeavor that is in front of me....
rests in my one choice in this moment..."
Because the journey of a thousand miles begins with one single step.
But also step 2781
And step 61790
and step 156102
and so on...
It doesn't just start with one step. Every step to continue is just one step.
If you make a constant effort to "win the day" by making excellent decisions, again and again, starting from the smallest details of your life that are right in front of you...
You will absolutely kill it in life.
When you want to get in shape, and you need to eat healthier food, you will look at it as just one decision.
Not even "one decision AT A TIME", but just "one decision". At a time implies a long road of future decisions, making you think of the opposite of the truth, many many decisions. It isn't. It's just one. Right now. Because once it's later it will still be right now, and that will be the fullest extent of any decision you'll ever have to make.
I used to think it was silly to put so much weight into "right now". I thought that people who made a big deal of things were foolish, with nearsighted vision.
Maybe that's true.
But once you realize that you can only ever live in the current moment, single moments become a big deal.
It is all you have.
So go do the dishes, do your pushups today, ask out that girl walking by, set your alarm and go to bed on time tonight, make your to do list for the first part of the day and eat a healthy dinner.
Don't even worry about doing it again tomorrow. By doing it tonight you have already won.
When you do this, and think this way, a great sense of calm will wash over you.
At least it does for me.
It lifts a large weight off of my brain.
It lets me get very quiet, very calm, and just start doing what needs to be done. I don't think about the future, the past, or anything else. I just think about what needs to be done and I get it done.
I hope it does the same for you.
