Maybe you look at your life right now and think, "This isn't where I wanted to be."
Your health. Your marriage. Your work. Your bank account. Your faith. Somewhere along the way it didn't go the way you drew it up.
I get it. I've been there. And I want to share the hardest sentence anyone ever said to me - because it turned out to be one of the most helpful.
The sentence I argued with
Years ago a business mentor looked at me and said, "Chance, you are exactly where you want to be."
I pushed back right away. "No, I'm absolutely not where I want to be."
He said, "Yeah, you really are." We went back and forth three or four times. It was frustrating. But it was the truth.
Here's how he put it: based on the decisions you've made over the last seven minutes, seven hours, seven days, seven weeks, seven months and seven years, you are exactly where you want to be.
He was talking about business. But man, it applies to every part of life.
Every choice is a vote
James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, says every choice we make is a vote for the person we want to become.
So here's the question I keep asking myself: are my choices today lining up with who I am, or with who I say I want to become?
Most of us are experts at being who we are today. We've practiced it for years. We're not experts yet at being who we say we want to become. That person takes new choices, and new choices take reps.
Now, to be fair, plenty happens that we don't control. Things hit us upside the head that we'd never pick. The question is what we do with it. How are we going to respond?
Why "control everything" doesn't work
Here's the interesting thing. When somebody tells us there are only a handful of things we fully control, it can feel overwhelming. We know we can't control them perfectly. So guess what? We don't try to control them much at all.
That's why I love working on the things we have some control over. Not total control. Some. That actually puts us in a stronger spot, because we can say, "Okay, I can't control all of it. But I can control a little bit."
One of those things is our routine.
Most of us don't own our whole day. We have to be at work at a certain time. We have people to take care of, tasks to finish, responsibilities that land on us whether we planned them or not.
But what about the first 1% of the day?
There are 1,440 minutes in a day, so 1% is about 14 minutes and 24 seconds. Could you get up 15 minutes earlier and own that slice? Could you control the very first part of your workday, or the first few minutes before you walk into a room with your kids, your spouse or your team?
Do a little bit, a lot of days
Too often we try to do a lot for a little while.
We start a massive one-hour workout and keep it up for three days. Or three days a week for three weeks. Then we stop, do nothing for a while, and come back to the same big push again. It's the January 1 cycle, and most of us know it well.
What if we flipped it? Control a little bit of your day, for a lot of days. Back to back to back.
That's where the compound effect lives. Not in one perfect day, but in a small win you repeat until it's just who you are. And you might surprise yourself. You might find you're getting closer to where you say you want to be.
I need this as much as anyone reading it. I'm coaching myself here too.
Your One More Rep: one small change to your routine
Here's your One More Rep. Don't try to fix everything. Pick one area:
- Your physical health
- Your mental fitness
- Your spiritual fitness
- Your relationships
- Your finances and resources
Then ask: what's one small way I could take control of my routine, just a little, to help that area grow?
If you need a place to start, here's one that's meant more to me than I can put into words. Many years ago I started every day with gratitude. Before anything else, I asked, "What can I be grateful for, regardless of what's going on?"
It doesn't even need 14 minutes. You could do it in a minute or two. Just be genuine and real about it. Start your day that way - and if you want, finish it that way too.
Remember, knowledge alone isn't power. Applying it is potential power. Applying it consistently is where the power really shows up.
Where you'll be next
You are exactly where you want to be based on the choices you've made. That's the hard part.
Here's the good news: the same is true going forward. Make a better choice today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and you'll still be exactly where you chose to be. It'll just be a better place, because you made better choices along the way.
So let's go do that together. One small rep, a lot of days. You are worth it, and you have what it takes. Let's grow!
