TINY HABITS, BIG IMPACT

There are things we do but feel like they are irrelevant and don't count in our lives. It is just like a house owner who neglects a droplet of water dropping from his ceiling thinking it amounts to nothing. The droplet can dry up immediately but if the source of the droplet is not fixed, it could cause great damage over time — to the floor and to the ceiling, the ceiling might collapse one day and the floor might weaken and break as well. What becomes the cause of the damage would no longer be the droplet of water, but the neglect of it. 

This scenario applies to our lives. There are some habits we keep, some of which have become unnoticeable and hardly seen as habits. Just like that droplet of water, we have allowed some habits to compound too much because of our obliviousness. The truth is that a habit we keep up becomes character, and this character makes an overall impact on one's success or failure. Students who consistently wake up early in order to meet up with their academic needs might see the act as a means to an end, which is to meet up with lectures. The consistency however becomes a habit that would not only help them academically, but also in other aspects of their lives. This character would show when such students start life after school or even start their families.

One important thing to learn as individuals is to be deliberate and conscious of everything we do. The book Atomic Habit says — “Making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent worse seems insignificant in the moment, but over the span of moments that make up a lifetime these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be. Success is the product of daily habits—not once-in-a-lifetime transformations.”

Let's look at two important aspect of habits; one is that habit becomes a character overtime and the the second one is that every habit contributes to the overall impression;

Habit as a Character

A habit you continue with will continue with you. If you decide to make morning naps a part of your daily routine, then be prepared to have morning naps as part of your life unless you stop it. Some skills we see people exhibit are not just gifts or inherent, they are sometimes skills they have acquired through consistency and diligence. It is hard to disrupt some people's daily routines because they not only become accustomed to them, they have also become a lifestyle. You don't get used to things you do not act on, you must understand that inconsistency makes you inconsistent and consistency makes you consistent. You become what you do overtime, and by then it is as though you can't escape from it. Reading everyday won't just be a routine for someone who has been consistent, it becomes a character and such a person will unconsciously read everyday and missing a day will be as though the day is incomplete because your character is something you can't do without. 

Habit as a contributor

Let's go back to that drop of water, a single day drop of water will not cause the ceiling to collapse or make the floor break but that single day is a part of the process, it's part of the step. The ceiling might have been saved if the single day was prevented or if the droplet was stopped after the single day. For instance, saving #100 a day does not make you a millionaire immediately. It is a process. It is part of the journey. That's the first step that must be continued. 

You have a goal of finishing a book with 365 pages in a year, you must start the year with the first page, missing a page a day will cut short your goal and you might have to carry over the page till next year. Every little step you take consistently does not just become a habit but makes a contribution to your goal. Saving #100 the first day might seems meaningless and irrelevant but that #100 consistently can meet up your goal.

 Hitting the gym the first day won't make you fit that second day but the contribution of that day can't be neglected. Just as some things you are doing might not show now but they all add up to make a difference. Same way, there are some things or habits you keep that seem irrelevant and these habits might not seem for a particular goal but they develop an attitude in you. A student that is diligent in their study will become a diligent person, and this diligence won't be limited to academics alone because he/she has journeyed with that attitude and it has become a part of them. 

In conclusion, the attitude or character you have towards life do not just show up, they are habits that you keep up consistently. The results that you see or will see is a product of a habit that you keep up, a habit that you keep showing up at. Simply put, your life is a product of the things you do, you must know that what you do, you become. This is not just a theory, it is a life principle that is applicable at all times. You must be deliberate and intentional about the things that you do.