Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. John Maxwell

The kitchen makeover is almost complete. White paint now covers pink pickled oak and yellow paint has replaced the wallpaper.  The new handles haven’t arrived yet so the old ones with a little paint on them have been reinstalled. A pretty shelf liner in black and white will replace what was there before. We want to get back to eating at our table, have our utensils back in their drawers, and enjoy the sunnier and brighter kitchen we now have.

We could have done our kitchen slowly ripping off the wallpaper an hour here and an hour there. It took me a week and a half of long hours to get the wallpaper off. Getting the wallpaper off was the biggest part of the job.

When we want to make a change in our lives some things we can do quickly and some things we have to do slowly over time. A lot of us are good at the big things. We will work as hard as we need to get something done. Are we willing to daily do the things we want to change that we can’t change in a day, week, or month?

Yesterday for many of us was a day of overeating, over-drinking, and over-celebrating. We can eat and drink like that a few days a year but what if we did it daily? We might be able to do a 5k, 10k, or full marathon but we can’t do it every day. The marathon isn’t going to make us fitter and healthier.

We may dream of winning a million dollars. We can build ourselves up to millionaire status by investing over time in small amounts. The value and dividends compound over time. We might not think a small amount deposited regularly will amount to much. Haven’t we all heard about the magic of compound interest, we need to make it work for us.

Success doesn’t come from doing extraordinarily difficult things. It’s doing simple things consistently. Unknown

We often worry about our weight. We want to lose weight so we try something drastic we can’t possibly stick to over the long haul. If we adopt an eating and exercise habit we can stick to we will not see results quickly but they will compound over time. Mom’s habit of doing back exercises in bed before she gets up has paid dividends over the years. She is still doing them and she is still reaping the benefit.

Our daily habits might not seem like much, but for good or bad they will compound into something. If we eat 100 calories less than we need over time we will lose weight, if we eat 100 calories more than we need over time we will gain weight. We won’t see either of these in six months but if we keep it up which direction we are going in will be evident.

Intermittent fasting is all the rage now. I’ve adopted it myself. Eating a little later for breakfast isn’t a hardship. A twenty-four-hour fast a couple of days a week is doable. A small morning exercise routine might hardly seem worth doing. These aren’t practices that will make a huge difference immediately, but over time they lead to better health.

We may sit down and read a book at one sitting. This will not change our life. If we read ten pages or a few minutes every day, this can change our life. Small incremental changes can move us in a direction we want to go, as we keep the good habits we have and develop new ones we keep moving forward toward our goals.

We might think we need to make a grand gesture in our marriage but what if we started small? A little more respect, a little less flying off the handle at the unimportant, a peck on the cheek, a hug, an invitation to something fun? We might think we need a big holiday to put the romance back in our marriage. That might be a way of not doing the little things we can do to make things better. We have a choice to make every day, we can make things worse or we can make things better. We can be grateful for the partner we have or we can wish they would change. We can look for little ways to thank them for the things they do that bring pleasure, security, order, and fun into our lives.

It’s the little things in life that make a big difference. Sometimes they are so little we don’t see where they are leading. Is it true if we look after the little things the big things look after themselves? We have more control over the little things. If it’s true we all have more power in our lives than we think we do.

That monthly deposit into an investment plan over time will turn into something. Waiting until we have enough to invest may keep us always waiting with good intentions but not getting anywhere. We want to see the big changes in our lives but the real difference is made in our daily habits. It is in the daily things we do where we see the compound effect. Is our life compounding in the positive or negative direction?

The compound effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. Darren Hardy

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it… He who doesn’t… pays it. Albert Einstein

The truth is, what you do matters. What you do today matters. What you do every day matters. Successful people just do the things that seem to make no difference in the act of doing them and they do them over and over until the compound effect kicks in. Jeff Olson

Thank you for reading this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you will come back and read some more. Have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

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