The Ripple Effect

Nobody ever wakes up thinking, “I hope my actions today lead to a massive failure down the road.”

Rather, our everyday intentions are often pure and meaningful. We wake up hoping for a good day, try to make the right moves towards growth, and then get in a few meals to keep us going so we can survive another day.
For the most part, we are all aiming to do our best.

Where we get led astray sometimes is in our small habitual choices. I.e, the things we do with very little concern, thinking, or focus. Things like:

Our morning routine
Eating habits
Pre & Post training routine
Thought patterns
Downtime habits
Emotional responses
Evening routine

Having these habitual behaviours are essential and necessary for survival. Without habits, we would never get anything done. We would be stuck in indecision every step of the way.

A problem arises when we never take a second to slow down and question our daily habitual actions and their long-term effects.

And it’s often not the case that until some catastrophic moment like a big loss or failure rolls around before we even realize just how far we’ve been led off course; and while at that moment we like to blame some single event. When in reality it’s the build-up that led to the ultimate failure.

This is where understanding the Ripple Effect can become so useful.

When you take some time to actually question your habitual actions you will often discover a collection of small negative choices that are leading to your bigger failures.

It wasn’t one big thing, but rather one small thing repeated every single day, over and over.

There is a rippling effect to your small choices. One thing leads to another, which leads to another, which leads to a big moment of either failure or success.