The single change in my daily routine that had the biggest impact in my life

Doing a series of pushups every day.
I started this discipline to lose weight.

I didn’t. In fact, I was gaining pounds each year. Nonetheless my fitness performace increased significantly and I learned the value of perseverance.

Before my life transformation, a good chunk of my personal philosophy was the belief that not much depends on my actions. I was afraid that my efforts to get more out of life would be in vain. I would work my ass off just to get exhausted. My dreams couldn’t come true.

Reading The Slight Edge I reminded myself of the instances where I did something consistently and got the results. It wasn’t a massive action, but it was focused and stretched over a long period of time.

I did one series of pushups every day for a few years and I extended my limits. I was eventually able to do more than 120 consecutive pushups.

This realization has shaken my small world

Something clicked in my head. My personal philosophy shifted into “time plus effort equals results.”

I developed tiny disciplines, which I practiced consistently: tracking my expenses, tracking my calorie intake, writing, speed-reading. I observed some results almost immediately.
Within a month, I was reading almost 50 percent faster.
In seven months, I reached my dream weight.
Those rapid results kept me going with the disciplines I couldn’t have believed would have ever brought me results.

Like making money on my own. In the last 3 years I earned from 11% to 50% of my salary from my writing.