Albert Einstein is quoted as saying, “Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it. He who doesn’t, pays it.” The basic idea behind compound interest is that keeping your money with a financial institution such as a bank enables your money to grow the longer it is kept there.
Over time, compound interest can really add up because interest earns more interest, and over time the growth can become exponential. Say your bank offers a 10 percent per year guaranteed interest rate. In seven years, you will double the money you initially deposited.
I get that 10 percent is an aggressive rate of return, and I am no financial wizard, but the concept of compound interest also applies to going after your goal.
The metrics are different, and they are more elusive to measure, but taking action is a currency that can have a compounding effect just like putting money in a bank.
Action Is a Currency
When I was running Perfect Fitness, I made every salesperson who worked with me get a personal training certification. My reasoning was simple. You must understand what our products do for the body, and equally important, you must be able to explain that with confidence to a fitness buyer who typically had very little fitness knowledge.
One of the first things you learn going through the National Academy of Sports Medicine Optimum Performance Training Certification is that fitness training is cumulative. For instance, if you do a 10 minute walk every hour for 6 hours, you have the cumulative effect of doing 60 minutes of walking that day. The steps you take in 10 minute intervals can really add up. Depending on your rate of walking, that could mean taking up to 10,000 steps in a day.
The same goes for strength training or yoga or Pilates or certain aerobic workouts. Depending on your goal, some aerobic workouts need prolonged heart rate training to help you achieve the results you might be looking for, such as conditioning for major high altitude mountain climbing.
The point is this: if you are just starting a new fitness goal of transforming your body, such as losing weight or building muscle or both, knowing the concept of cumulative training, small intervals of fitness workouts, can be just as helpful as one 60 minute workout session. That can be very helpful for your motivation.
Many people find going from zero training to 30 or 60 minutes of daily exercise too intimidating and therefore come up with a host of logical reasons, in other words excuses, to postpone taking the fitness actions required to achieve their body transformation goal.
The Same Principle Applies to Any Goal
Whether you are saving money or changing your body, the same compounding effect applies to any goal.
In goal achievement, the currency I am referring to is action, and these goal actions have a similar compound effect to putting money in a bank. The challenge is being aware of this form of compound interest or, in fitness terms, the cumulative impact of your actions.
No goal just magically happens. The old adage is true: for a dream to work, you must do the work.
The more actions you take, the more progress is made, and that progress means you can achieve your desired result faster.
The same goes for saving money or changing your body. Save more money, make more money. Exercise more, burn more calories, and more body changes happen. There are limits of course, too much exercise can actually be harmful, but you get my point.
The same rules apply with any goal: more action leads to more goal achievement.
The Pre-Progress Phase
I want you to be aware of this action compounding effect because too often people give up too soon after taking just a few actions toward their goal.
Like changing your body, you have to perform weeks of output before you notice results. Behind the scenes, your body is actually making incremental changes, you just cannot see them yet. The same goes for other goals.
Your initial goal actions will feel a lot like starting an exercise routine for the first time, lots of output but very little visible result. During this initial phase, which I call the pre-progress phase, I want you to track your actions in much the same way a fitness trainer tracks your steps or reps, or a bank tracks your incremental money earned in pennies. This pre-progress phase is different for every goal you seek. The bigger the goal, the longer the pre-progress phase.
Progress Is Fuel
The reason I focus on progress is because progress is the fuel that keeps you persisting.
Once you notice that your efforts are paying off, such as losing weight or seeing pennies turning into dollars, you will be more motivated to commit yourself even more to the actions needed to achieve your goal. Write down and record your daily goal actions. Some goals have simple units of measurement by which you can track your actions, such as words written if your goal is to write a 60,000 word book.
Other goals are more elusive to track, such as starting a business, making the Olympic Team, or becoming an All American. Those goals require dedicated daily actions that span a broad set of activities. When you are working toward a goal that does not have simple units of measurement, then use the time you dedicate and the key actions you took during that time as your units of measurement. By doing this, you will be building a new habit of daily action toward your goal, and when you do this, you are already on your path to success.
When the Slingshot Releases
Do not focus on early results when you are in the pre-progress phase. Focus on the level of action you are taking.
Make each action count, even if you can only do it in small chunks throughout the day or week. Before you know it, you will experience the compounding effect of your actions. You will notice that tasks that were once more time consuming are becoming easier. You will find yourself looking forward to the time you have committed to your new goal. Your confidence will grow, and you will start looking for ways to take even more action toward your goal throughout the day. This is progress.
And when you leave the pre-progress phase, it can feel like you are in a slingshot, because some progress may come in the form of a giant leap instead of a small step. In a sense, you are in a slingshot, or perhaps a spring, because all those actions have been compounding behind the scenes, building energy in the direction of your goal.
It will not be a linear progression. You will still have lots of downs in between a few leaps forward, and that is normal, because achieving something new to you takes time. But trust me, as Einstein said, those who understand it earn it. And when you earn your goal, you are living your dreams, and that is what life is all about.
Be Unstoppable!
Charlie Mike,
Alden
