The Power of Little Things Multiplied by Consistency

Little things add up to big things. It’s difficult to fathom, but is a truth. For both good and bad things, little actions add up to big effects. For example:

Spend $5 here and $10 there and before you know it, you’ve spent hundreds of dollars. 

Every day a little dust accumulates and before you know it, your house is dusty. 

At the beach, each grain of sand is minuscule, but together, they make up a beach. 

I love to cross-stitch. Every stitch is tiny and takes but a second to complete. After minutes, hours and weeks go by, you have a tapestry. 

Minutes, hours, days, and weeks add up to an entire lifetime. 

A little sunshine here and there and before you know it, your skin is tanned. 

The effects of smoking cigarettes add up over a lifetime. 

Putting a little money into savings every month. 

Small things become big things when they’re multiplied by consistency. And it doesn’t take that much. Honestly. Each one, each action is minuscule, negligible, and goes unnoticed. But together, each action when you multiply it by every day adds up. Think of some examples:

• 10 minutes of reading every morning = 70 minutes of reading in a week. If a book takes 5 hours to complete, that’s just a few weeks for one book! 

Thinking bigger, 30 minutes a day of an activity over 5 days is 2.5 hours per week! Wow! 

Consistency and habits really do add up. So 2.5 hours per week in one sitting versus 30 minutes each day. If you do something for 30 minutes per day, and you miss one day, it’s not that long until the next day and you can pick it back up again. And you’ve only missed 30 minutes. You’d still finish the week with 2 hours of that thing. 

But if you only do the thing once a week for 2.5 hours, and you miss a week, that’s 2 weeks between times. And one week with 0. 

Think also of momentum. If it’s been 2 weeks since you last had coffee or brushed your teeth, you’re probably out of the habit of having coffee or brushing your teeth. And it’ll be hard to keep going and doing it. But if you just did it yesterday and it’s part of your daily routine, then momentum will help you stick to it. 

In the moment, the little thing looks like nothing. Feels useless and a waste of time. But over time, little by little, small things and quick acts become big things.