“There is real magic in enthusiasm. It spells the difference between mediocrity and accomplishment.”
Norman Vincent Peale
Every decision and every action we make can expand across our lives in impactful ways. (The same applies to non-decisions and non-actions too.)
No pressure, right?
This can be frightening if we let the ripples carry us to place we don’t want to go. However, we can also take advantage of this insight and use it to carry us to places in life we do want to go.
By making shifts in our daily actions, we can accumulate change we want to see.
Most of the time, ripples are subtle.
Decisions are difficult to observe, because you have to balance the net-positives and net-negatives of our daily decisions equate to. If all our habits, decisions and actions were a type of soup, they would be a quickly thrown together stew.You’re not quite sure what’s in there, but some flavors are canceling each other out, and others are overpowering the entire dish.
This is an odd juxtaposition between short-term and long-term effects that I’m honestly still trying to wrap my head around.
For example, Perhaps you can get away with a poor diet because you exercise a lot. For now, the benefits of your exercise cancel’s out the downsides of your fast food and cookies. Now toss in a stressful job in the mix. What is that doing to your health and fulfillment? If it’s feeding something you love to do and are passionate about, then maybe its worth it.
Which good habits are giving you a positive outcome?
Which bad habits are zapping you from being able to benefit from your good habits?
Which of the decisions and daily drivers you are making helping you to or hindering you from where you want to be?
Sometimes, ripples are not-so-subtly smacking you in the face.
For example, negativity isn’t doing anyone any favors. Not only are they making themselves miserable, they are also making everyone around them miserable too.
The best way I’ve discovered to handle these types of ripples is honing your observationally skills to be able to see the character traits, habits, decisions and actions that are hindering you, and finding a tool (or toolkit) from life, history or other smart people who have been in similar shoes you are in.
STAY BOLD, Keep Pursuing,
— Josh Waggoner | Daily Blog #704
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