The Domino Effect

Summary

The website content discusses the benefits of applying the domino effect principle to personal improvement by consistently doing a little more each day.

Abstract

The article on the website illustrates the concept of the domino effect as a metaphor for incremental daily improvements leading to significant long-term gains. It cites Coach John Wooden, emphasizing the importance of striving to be a little better every day. The author shares a personal anecdote about her husband's workout regimen, which gradually increases in intensity over ten weeks, to demonstrate how overwhelming goals become manageable when broken down into smaller, daily tasks. The author also reflects on her own resistance to large challenges but finds inspiration in the idea of starting small, particularly in the context of developing writing habits. The article encourages readers to focus on daily achievements and to trust in the compound effect of consistent effort, suggesting that this approach lays the groundwork for substantial progress in any area of life.

Opinions

The author admires the discipline and foresight required to set up and execute a progressive workout plan, as exemplified by her husband's experience.
She expresses intimidation at the prospect of facing monumental challenges all at once but finds comfort in the strategy of focusing on immediate, achievable goals.
The author believes that the key to benefiting from the domino effect is to start with small, manageable tasks and to maintain a consistent effort over time.
She acknowledges that while rapid growth is desirable, it is the steady, incremental progress that sets the stage for more significant breakthroughs.
The author advocates for the application of the domino effect principle across various aspects of life, including fitness, creativity, business, and personal development.
She encourages an immediate start to improvement efforts, emphasizing that today's small actions build momentum for tomorrow's achievements.

How can I benefit from doing a little more each day?

“You have to apply yourself each day to becoming a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better.” — Coach John Wooden

The domino effect makes me think of a stack of dominoes falling. I look at all that hard work of perfectly placing each domino just the right distance from the one before it to ensure that it will continue the falling momentum when the first domino is lightly pushed. To some extent that momentum is exactly what the domino effect is all about. The domino effect according to Wikipedia “is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a chain of similar events.”

I have seen this effect play out in my own life, well in my husband’s life but I have still seen the benefits of it. He started this workout program that requires you to start with 10 reps of push-ups, sit ups, squats and pull ups, plus a 1km run each day for a week, then the following week he adds 10 to each plus an extra 1km. This program runs for 10 weeks so that by the end of it you are doing 100 of everything and a 10km run.

Focusing on the finish line of what will be expected or achieved by the end of it terrifies me. I look at where I am now and think there is no way I could manage something like this. It seems too big and too hard. Of course, if I only focus on where I want to be at the end of the challenge it is too big, it is a monumental effort. But by focusing only on what I have to achieve this week, today even, it becomes a realistic and doable challenge.

Do I plan on starting some sort of crazy exercise challenge, umm nope that is not for me! However, what I can do is use the domino effect in any area of my life. I can use it to focus on my writing habits. By doing a little each day, even if it is only 50 words on a project I am working on, at the end of the week I will see the dominoes starting to take place, and by the end of the first month I will be able to see the chain of events that have taken place all because I started small.

Like the opening quote from Coach John Wooden, start small, start by applying yourself each day to the things that matter to you, don’t focus on the big picture, but on the little day by day goals. Look at how far you have come each day and what you have achieved because you kept working on it little by little. Yes, it would be awesome to grow in leaps and bounds, and sometimes that does happen. When we focus on the little by little, we have set the foundation in place for the bigger growth spurts to happen. Yet if we sit around waiting for the big growth spurts without working on the here and now, we won’t see the full benefit of the domino effect.

Start Small, Start Today

We all have areas of our lives that we would like to improve, whether that be a fitness goal, a creative goal, a business goal or a personal goal, we can use the domino effect to make a start on it today and tomorrow we can work on it again and in no time we will see the momentum that little by little we have built into something big, we will be able to see the big improvements that we have gained from applying ourselves to the task each and every day!