Success is the sum of small efforts – repeated day in and day out.
Robert Collier
Mundane as it may be, what first came to mind when I saw this quote about repetitive activities is housework. Yes, house chores and all that goes with it.
Being a single parent who is mainly responsible for the upkeep of our humble home, small as it may be, doing small things with consistency is the key to achieving that.
Basic examples include cleaning the area used before leaving it, e.g., the kitchen after a meal, washing the dishes and putting them away, wiping that surface dust, crumb, or spill regardless of how unnoticeable it may be, and sweeping the floor at least once a day.
They may sound like banal activities, but you’ll be surprised when you let these things slide. Let it go for a day or two, and you will see how easily those dishes pile up, dust and dirt stick to surfaces, and things become grimy, taking twice the time to clean up.
A different example is building positive habits when setting a personal goal, like living a healthy lifestyle. Whether it is through a good diet or with proper exercise.
When you decide to have a healthier body, it comes with some form of being active. Whether by walking, running, Yoga, and Pilates, to name a few. Anything that gets your body moving.
The key to succeeding in that endeavor is putting in the time and energy to repeatedly do them. You build upon your progress, one mile at a time, or one session in a day. You bring yourself to a regimen that you keep up consistently until it becomes a lifestyle, not just a fad.
The opposite could also be true. When we repeatedly ignore the good habits that come with a healthy lifestyle, the pounds and health issues pile up over time. Next thing we know, it is one ailment after another, because we didn’t have a repeatable mechanism to eliminate what’s not good for our bodies.
It is the same with our work. There are days when it is tough, but we show up anyway. Whatever task we are not familiar with, we fill in the gap by doing more of it. The mastery of a subject matter could be on different levels depending on the role. However, the mark of incremental progress is that you learned more today than you did the day before.
As a project manager by profession, a sound advice I received from a mentor was to approach any big initiative by starting small and with the basics.
A famous quip we go by was “how do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time”.
What it tells us is that any large task or impossible endeavor may seem daunting, but we can tackle it bit by bit. Break it down into smaller pieces to work on consistently, and by doing so, we gain momentum to keep going until all the objectives are met.
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