A hidden skill
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One of the most important skills you can have is one that took me half my life to figure out.
Don’t get too excited about that opening sentence: some lessons in life take me much longer than others to figure out.
The skill I want to share with you today involves compound interest.
Before you hit reply saying “Hey wait a minute! Compound interest is a tool, not a skill…” hear me out.
I used to think that compound interest was only something bankers used: a way for money to make more money. Interest keeps getting added to the principal such that a sum can grow steadily. It happens by a little at first, but then by a lot as time passes.
Compounding is an effect. It creates change that is a result or consequence of action. Just as important, compounding is not limited to financial matters.
You can harness this effect and hone it like a skill. It applies just as much to learning and personal growth.
Your actions and deliberate choices in life serve you best when you treat them the same way that compound interest works.
Rather than expect immediate gratification from having made a single change (quitting a bad habit, for example), you instead see your choice as part of a larger group of choices that eventually result in meaningful change.
Just like that old saying about the watched pot that never boils, exercising compound interest as a life skill only really works if you stop looking for immediate results.
Be patient. Understand that the most meaningful changes are the ones you make little by little every day.
No matter what you are trying to accomplish–lose weight, become a better writer, have a deeper relationship with someone, overcome a major obstacle at work–pay very little attention to whether your initial steps are having any immediate effect.
Focus instead on what you can do to turn that act into a habit or ritual.
Once you recognize that there is power in the deliberate choice of just showing up with the intent to act, your life changes.
Very best, Patrick
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