How To Use Small Changes To Your Advantage
It’s these little things that will lead you to succeed.
Small improvements over time can often add up. A concept that’s used in meteorology called the Butterfly Effect can show us exactly how.
The Butterfly Effect is about how small changes in a complex system will equal results that are essentially impossible to predict. What typically seems like a small and insignificant change in one place could potentially result in large differences somewhere else in the grand scheme of things.
People often try and speed life up and hit large milestones as quickly as possible. In reality, you shouldn’t move faster but instead slow down and ask yourself, “how can I start making small, impactful changes right now, and what are those changes?”
The answer is to develop a series of habits and strategies that put you in the best place possible to succeed. After that, it’s all just a matter of hard work.
What could seem like a small or insignificant event may result in a larger impact on your overall life.
If I offered you 1 million dollars or 1 penny, which one would you choose?
Small changes that you consistently do each day will equal big rewards in the grand scheme of things. For example, take doubling a penny.
If I offered you a million dollars or 1 penny that doubled in value every day for the next 30 days, what would you do?
Part of you is going to go with the million dollars today. Don’t worry; I said the same thing at first. However, when you double a penny every day for the next 30 days, you would end up with 5,368,709.12 million dollars. That’s not too shabby, is it?
That’s the beauty of compound interest.
With that being said, here are a few simple ways to use small changes to your advantage.
Make your bed every single morning.
The elementary and simple act of making your bed every morning might be the world’s easiest success habit, mostly because it will inevitably bring you a lot of wealth at the end of the day. Kidding, but all jokes aside, it’s because it starts a chain reaction of other productive habits.
Charles Duhigg author of, The Power of Habits, says,
“Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, a greater sense of well-being, and stronger skills at sticking within a budget.”
Essentially, in Duhigg’s words, making your bed is a “keystone habit,” it’s something that will kickstart a pattern of other good and productive behavior. Also, because it happens at the very beginning of the day, you’re more likely to make better decisions for the rest of the day, all thanks to your bed-making routine.
If success and productivity aren’t enough, according to author Gretchen Rubin, making your bed is also one of the most significant and easiest triggers of happiness. She says,
“When I was researching my book on happiness, this was the number one most impactful change that people brought up over and over.”
Make your bed the moment you get out of it, let it become instinctive to you, something you don’t think about, and you just do it.
Set your alarm 30 minutes earlier.
Real Estate Investor Brandon Turner wrote an article for Entrepreneur on how setting an earlier alarm clock changed his life, and this was his experience:
My body had not quite adjusted to the time change, but within minutes (as compared to an hour or more in the past), I was wide awake and starting my “miracle morning” routine, which involved reading prayer/meditation, and light exercise with a healthy dose of good, old fashioned peace and quiet.
After this, I got to work on one of my many online entrepreneurial business ideas that I’ve been thinking about for years but never taken action on. I spent the next two hours coding and was completely “in the zone.”
The project was finally taking shape!
By 8:30 am (the time I usually ended up rolling out of bed), I had read several chapters of a good business book, listened to part of a podcast, spent time in prayer, done some P90X Yoga, and worked on a side-project that I’d been “too busy” to work on for years.
I knew after the first day; my life would never be the same.
An alarm clock is not slavery but freedom. It will set you free to take your business, your mind, and your life to places you never dreamed of, faster than you ever thought possible.
So stop looking at your alarm clock as the enemy and start looking at it as your closest ally.
Waking up earlier has so many more benefits alongside that; you could wake up just 30 minutes earlier every day to prepare yourself a healthy breakfast so you wouldn’t be relying on eating out, or you could get a quick workout in or even work on your side hustle for an extra 20–30 minutes.
Setting your alarm clock 30–45 minutes earlier every single day is one of the perfect small changes you could make now that might lead to large and positive changes down the road.
Just imagine what 30 minutes of exercise might do for you every morning if you’re not currently doing so.
Personally, I’m an early bird. I wake up between 5:30–6 am naturally, but it took me years to get adjusted to that type of sleep schedule. I find that starting my day earlier helps me stay focused and sharp instead of starting later in the day and sleeping in.
Monitor your phone usage.
Notice I used the word “monitor” rather than eliminate or reduce. We live in 2020, a world that relies heavily on cell phone usage and social media? That’s the book you like to cuddle up with late at night.
I rely on social media for my business, but after doing a dopamine detox, I realized just how addicted I was to my phone, and I needed to do something drastic to change that. However, quitting cold turkey wasn’t an option. Instead, I opted for setting time limits and leaving my phone in a different room during my work hours, so I wouldn’t be tempted to check it.
Phones are a product of consumption rather than creation. There are definitely exceptions for those rare individuals who produce amazing photos with interesting stories. However, the majority of casual creators are using phones for intake. Remember, if you’re consuming, you’re not creating.
Start small. Set time limits, avoid using it first thing in the morning (my personal biggest struggle). Try putting it on airplane mode to avoid hearing your notifications; leave it in a different room while you’re working. Be self-aware of yourself when you’re on it. Have you clicked “refresh” 10x already?
When you eat dinner with your friends or family, turn it off and don’t even give it a second look. It’s not polite to be on your phone when you’re in a group. You can’t be present when your mind is wondering where your friend got that new jacket she just posted on her stories.
Read ten pages a day. (Preferably non-fiction.)
In a world of endless entertainment, you usually opt for guilty pleasures instead of educating yourself. I say that with understanding; it took me a long time to realize that my love for movies and TV shows wasn’t simply because I just loved them; it was because I was addicted to getting that instant rush of dopamine.
You need to ask yourself, how much actual value are those activities providing? What if you could get the same satisfaction from nonfiction books and become a better version of yourself in the process?
Reading has many benefits, one of them being that you can learn so many incredible and valuable life lessons through the experiences of others. As a result, it can also help you avoid pitfalls and make the most of new opportunities.
Nonfiction is considered a gateway to knowledge that your typical formal education often lacks. From business, marketing, history, and religion to psychology, nonfiction illuminates a vast range of areas. As a result, making you significantly more intelligent and well-rounded.
Take it from Warren Buffett, who says,
“I just sit in my office and read all day.”
He estimates that he spends 80% of his working day reading and thinking. Reading requires a lot of focus, and by making the necessary habit of concentrating, you’ll find it easier to be much more present and productive.
Start small. Add 15–20 minutes of reading into your daily routine, or add a certain amount of pages a day. You’ll end up feeling more focused and productive.
These small but significant changes can lead to drastic results in your future. Remember that it’s not always about making huge actions daily to get ahead; staying committed to any action — small or large is what will inevitably help you reach your goals.
As Einstein once said,
“Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.”