A Small Drop of Change
Time moves too fast and we are already halfway through the first month of 2022. At the start of it, I made some personal decisions on the things that I would like to slowly change.
Almost 3 weeks in and I can say that I have been mostly successful because I keep trying. No matter how hard it felt like to keep choosing the change that I wanted, I resisted the temptation to fall back to bad habits. I do not always win against the temptation, but I still overcome it when it matters.
This choice to work on becoming a better version of myself is tiring. It is so easy to just forget about it all and go back to being my unaware and uncaring self. However, just the tiny taste of change kept me going. The momentary glimpse of who I could be pushes me forward.
This morning, I woke up earlier than normal. I did not do much in terms of productive things but I still count today as a win. For the months leading up to this moment, I usually wake up at around lunch time. This led to a decrease in my efficiency. Moreover, I always felt more lethargic than ever. Some days, I manage to wake up early but the pull of the bed will be too much to resist. But not today. Today I was able to get up and do some fun activities for myself.
Such a small thing, and yet this keeps me moving all the same. I remember what one of the Youtubers, simonesquared, I watch likes to say that the goal is to be 1% better everyday.
It might not look like much but small efforts add up. If you want numbers to go with it, well there was this thing that our professor showed us last time.
365^1 = 365
365^1.01 = 387.18
See how such a little bit of effort everyday differs from doing the same thing over and over? Oyr professor showed that to ys at the start of the classes to remind us that our path is full of hardships, but consistently doing the work will give us a solid foundation. Small progress everyday is better than a stop and go progress. Where you go months of being uninspired then you will have a burst of inspiration for a few weeks. After which you go back to being uninspired again, slowly undoing the progress you made.
Going back to my progress story, I woke up early today. Instead of going back to sleep, I read a few pages of a book. This small achievement gave me a boost in my mood which helped me be more productive today.
I read a summary of the book that I wanted to read but knew that it will be too bothersome to filters out the lessons in it if I read it fully. So I decided to look for a detailed summary online which is easier for my brain to swallow.
It is a good move on my part as based on the summary, I did not miss much new information as I already know what is written in the book. I have always been fond of reading random articles online which I found more valuable than a wordy book that describes the same thing repeatedly in just different phrases. I found that sometimes a 10-minute read of article will provide the same information (if a bit compressed and less detailed) than a full book.
This is a good trick that I have started using since I have less free time than I did in high school when I could read 300-500 pages of a book in one day. Time is of essence so for non-fiction, I prefer to check through the summary first and if most of the concepts are something that I am familiar with then I no longer read the whole thing. I move to the next one which will add more to my stock knowledge.
I am of course not recommending it to everyone as different things work for others. I am just sharing my own observation in my life.
Anyway, this is just to show that small changes really made a difference for me. It helps me feel more productive without feeling always on edge of a breakdown. It helps me enjoy life as I am learning new things and continuously working on myself.
Thank you for reading this article!
If you want to read some more articles of mine, I have monthly summaries here:
December 2021 Articles Summary
November 2021 Articles Summary
September 2021 Articles Summary
To show my appreciation for the support that I have been receiving, please accept a small gift I prepared for the first reader.
This is what I always try to convince myself - small efforts, consistently, contributes a lot. I used to do things kasi ng isang bagsakan. Like I will do a big task na pwede naman hatiin into smaller tasks but I chose to do it in a day. Tapos boom, pagod, nagkasakit kinabukasan haha This is a note to self as well every time I feel like I'm drifting away from my goals. Baby steps. Take one step at a time. I'm proud of your small win today ✨