The Compound Effect – A Life Changing Eyeopener

If there was anything this year that made me question every choice and habit, it was the compound effect.

I’ve been wanting to write a post on the Compound Effect for a while, because for me it became a life-changing eyeopener. (I had to cut 500+ words on this blog post because I was just talking way too much about how intriguing I found the compound effect. No exaggerations).

It was the Compound Effect that had changed the trajectory on how I approached every goal that I had, and to be honest, it did make me rethink a few things.

That’s why it shouldn’t be a surprise that one of my top five favourite books is The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy (I definitely recommend it, and I’m usually picky with the recommendations I make…) What I love about this book is that it pretty much swiped the assumption that there is a secret formula to success.

Any goal that somebody would have, whether that’d be to lose weight, have a certain career, or build a business, it’s easy to think that it came from massive forms of actions.

I know that if I scrolled through Facebook, I would see ads of quick weight loss products or programs, or a business building course that would promise quick and fast results.

It was only until I understood the concept of the Compound Effect when I realised that there is no “secret” to achieving success with any goal instantly.

The Compound Effect is Always in Action

Like I mentioned above, maybe at one point or another we may have thought that success in any goal takes one big once-in-a-lifetime transformation.

Just like with a goal of wanting to get stronger and healthier, we tend to think that we need to go overboard with all the training to get quick results.

We may have seen before and after pictures of those who accomplished their body goals in a six-month to a year period, and assumed that it was because they made a huge life change. In reality, there wasn’t a special “secret” that they used to accomplish that transformation.

So before I start mentioning the Compound Effect even more, let me just explain it briefly on what it is:

It’s a series of small choices that eventually leads to huge rewards. – Darren Hardy.

It’s when the little actions we do right now don’t feel significant in the moment. These little actions can be either good or bad actions. Whether we like it or not, the compound effect is always working in our lives.

Let me give an example that came from my (favourite) book:

Lets take three friends – all live in the same neighbourhood, makes the same amount of money, and have the same body weight.

Over a 25 month period, these are the small actions that each friend undertook:

Friend #1 – does what he has always done, doesn’t change anything to improve his life nor does he do anything to “ruin” his life.

Friend #2 – starts making small changes to his lifestyle such as reading books and listening to inspirational content. He cuts out a small amount of calories per day to his diet and starts going to the gym.

Friend #3 – starts making poorer choices such as watching more TV, begins eating unhealthy recipes, adding a smaller amount of calories each day.

So at the end of five, or even 12 months, there are no visible differences between them, so their small changes looked insignificant. However, by the end of the 25 months, you can see major visible differences.

Although Friend #3 only added a small amount of calories to his diet, he ended up with a massive weight gain. On the other hand, although Friend #2 only subtracted a small amount of calories to his daily diet, there is a visible weight loss transformation.

To add on, although the reading and listening that Friend #2 had done at first didn’t make much of a difference, by the end of the 25 months, he became much more content with his life. Friend #3 on the other hand, is the opposite result. As for Friend #1, he is pretty much the same since he didn’t change anything with his life.

I don’t know about anyone else, but this example for me had demonstrated how results, whether they are good or bad, did not come from an “overnight transformation” or a “massive action”. It was actually the result of small choices that had been completed consistently over that long period of time.

By a short-term period, that’s where most people would get discouraged that they’re not reaching their goals and give up those good habits (mostly speaking about “Past Me” on this one). It’s also the same with the people who think that because their seemingly bad actions are not giving negative effects, it’s not that detrimental.

So Everything We Do Actually Matters

If our goal is to improve our finances, then every dollar we spend matters. Spending $5 more a day doesn’t seem like much, but by the end of 2 years imagine how much that would add up to (I’m sorry, I’m not going to do any maths. I don’t do that on here 🙂 ).

If our goal is to get stronger, then every weight training session we do matters. Doing short weight-lifting routines doesn’t seem like enough, but when done consistently over a long period of time, you may one day all of a sudden find yourself lifting heavy items you would have never carried before.

If our goal is to lose weight, then everything we eat does matter. Just like with Friend #3 in the example above, adding an extra snack or two in one day is not going to impact our weight much in the moment, but over a 25 month period there would be a visible difference.

If our goal is to accomplish high grades, then how we spend our time studying matters. Skipping one study session doesn’t affect much, but how is that going to impact your grades when you consistently miss more sessions over that whole school year?

Before reading The Compound Effect, I’ve been guilty myself for feeling discouraged when I wasn’t seeing results immediately from the new habits that I formed.

Like when I wanted to improve my skin, just seven days into my new skincare routine and cleaner eating habits I just assumed that it was never going to work because the results weren’t immediate for me.

But still, I kept the routine up anyway, and eventually after a significant amount of time, I did see improvements to my skin. It definitely did not come from an “overnight fix”.

Imagine if I did the opposite of all that. I skipped skincare every day and I started eating a lot of unhealthy food. One week in, because I wasn’t seeing any immediate destruction, I would’ve just assumed that it wasn’t impacting me greatly.

BUT, if I had kept doing that over a significant amount of time, who knows what my skin would have looked like, and I don’t really want to picture it.

Patience is Really Key After All

I didn’t launch this blog hoping that it would be successful overnight, but if I stay consistent with my blog posts and continue to enhance my writing skills, who knows where it could lead to?

I even started dressmaking with my sewing machine. After learning about the Compound Effect, I am aware that I am not going to immediately become a professional fashion designer overnight. If I stay consistent with my practice in sewing, the compound effect would allow that this hobby may turn into something more someday.

One more other example is that when quarantine happened I started snacking more than ever. Because I read the Compound Effect after quarantine, I didn’t think that there were immediate consequences to this. Little did I know that later I would start breaking out as a result of those so-called “insignificant” choices.

So that’s why we shouldn’t immediately assume that a good habit is not working if the result we want is not immediate and not working in the moment.

It’s the same with indulging in our bad habits – we shouldn’t assume that a bad habit is not detrimental because we’re not seeing any negative effects right away.

Whether it’s a good or a bad habit, the earlier the small choices start, the more powerful the compound effect works either for or against us.

Ultimately it is up to us on the small choices we make that will either produce the good results we want, OR the bad results we don’t want.

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