The Power of Small Daily Improvements: Why Consistency Beats Intensity

Let’s get one thing straight first – I encourage you all to start thinking bigger.

But let’s also acknowledge how difficult it can sometimes be for each of you to truly do that…

Our whole society celebrates our biggest successes and often makes them out to be these magical things that just happen overnight. This leads most people to have unreasonably high expectations of themselves such as “what’s stopping me from making giant strides every single day?!”

While that might work initially, most of us end up burning out pretty quickly when we try to make massive changes without giving our brains a break. In my experience with software development, some of our greatest challenges come from trying to accomplish too much, too fast — especially because coding isn’t always fun.

The good news? Progress happens through small victories (called micro-habits) which help us build momentum while avoiding burnout. It’s sort-of analogous to writing code – you don’t necessarily expect anything earth-shattering out of each little improvement, but collectively they’ll start adding up to something.

So instead of searching for the next big thing each day here are some small things I’ve started to ask myself:

1.What could I learn today about my craft?
2.How could I organise my work-flow better tomorrow?
3.How else could you spend these five minutes on reflection?

It’s all about you now. I invite you take some personal time for reflection on what actually matters most. Remember these are small steps that will lead to big wins!

One year from now, I can guarantee these small habits will start multiplying and adding together into bigger ones.
But at times when we start taking things seriously, the lack of progress feels discouraging because everything looks static and unmoving.

You wouldn’t even notice how different you became if you started doing something right only three days ago.
But remember – great trees have deep rooted foundations. We need consistent efforts as well.

Instead of waiting for some huge motivation, let me know what little habit/skill you’re trying to develop/improve yourself? Let’s discuss more in the comments section below.