Tiny Actions Compound to Great Achievements

When we take a journey of growth, every day the journey compounds into something better.

There is an Albanian proverb, which says:

“The distance between the saying and the doing is the length of a river.”

This has a few layers of meaning, and can be seen in at least two perspectives. One external, when someone promises us that they will do something, or that they are something. We shouldn’t build expectations based on what they say, but we should wait to see what they actually show through actions. But that won’t happen fast, it will be a journey of patience that has the length of a river.

The other perspective, the internal one, is even more beneficial. It is about the expectations we have on ourselves. We also make promises to ourselves, and we say that we will become this and that.

And then we watch ourselves not become that ideal self day after day, and we give up completely because why bother, we are not who we say we are. But we forget that from the moment we decide and make a promise to ourselves on whom we want to be, we need to swim the river of the actual doing.

It won’t happen overnight, it won’t even happen over months sometimes. Sometime it will take a year, or years, depending on how big and far away is our vision.

But having that understanding, early on, is game changing. We will wake up everyday seeing our progress in the river, and not measuring ourselves with a mirage.

And like real rivers, this one is unpredictable too. Sometimes we will be helped to go fast by the stream that is growing from a rainy winter. Sometimes we will get slowed down by a dry summer.

Dangerous animals will make us stop and hide. Or difficult terrain and river tributaries will make us doubt the right direction. Bad weather will make us wait, and good weather will make us lazy. And beautiful scenery will justify the decision to stop and enjoy it.

But in any of these moments, we know that we haven’t drowned. We are alive and progressing, crossing the river that is in between the saying and the doing.

On a practical level, this can be translated into a daily effort that helps reach the vision of ourselves that we want to become. It’s the tiny progress in the river.

Let’s say you want to become a published author. When you want to achieve something like this, you decide to do one small action every single day about the goal. And it doesn’t have to start with lots of work. It can be:

• I read a Medium article about writing. Done, action completed for today, continue with your life.
• The next day is maybe reading a book on the craft of writing (On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King is my personal favorite). Action completed for the day, continue with your life.
• Possibly the next day is to sign up for a writing workshop to learn some new techniques that will give you confidence. Again here, the sign-up is the action, so you are done for the day.

The secret is to start very small. It might look insignificant and like procrastination at the beginning, but very soon, these tiny actions will become substantial ones. And they will compound, just like the water in the river stream, and just like numbers in math, the science of life.

Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Take up good deeds only as much as you are able, for the best deeds are those done regularly, even if they are few.” (Ibn Majah). He also said, “The most beloved of deeds to God are those that are most consistent, even if it is small.” (Bukhari).

The tiny actions will compound and will become “posting an article myself on Medium”, “writing the first page of a book”, “reaching out to a publishing house”, etc. But you don’t have to think of that right now, right now, just do one tiny action every day with the intention to help you become a published author. And let the compounding run its course on your actions.

Sometimes, like in the river analogy, life will happen, and you won’t be able to move forward. Or sometimes you will decide that you actually want to stop and enjoy the scenery, and will focus on the progress at a later time.

That is absolutely the right thing to do. And it won’t erase your progress. You are not going back to the beginning of the river. You are just stopping at its shore to protect yourself from the storms of life, or you are enjoying the breathtaking sunset in that particular part of the river.

Tomorrow, or next week, or next month, the river will still be there, your compounding will still be there, and you can resume the journey of becoming who you said you will become.