The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success - Darren Hardy

The Compound Effect: Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success

Think “get rich quick” schemes work? Think again!

The fact you want to read about The Compound Effect means that you want success in your life, and chances are that you’ve tried a few different routes before. Again, the fact you want to learn about this new method also means that everything else you’ve tried to date has failed. The truth? We’re fed endless lines about “get rich quick” schemes, but none of them work.

In order to achieve real, lasting success, you need to work hard, earn it, and be consistent in your efforts. Nothing will come to you overnight and simply fall into your lap. If you see an advertisement on TV promising you wonderful results for three installments of x number of dollars, it’s not going to work and you’re going to end up out of pocket as a result. All of this is a clever marketing ploy to take your cash and leave you missing the point.

The Compound Effect teaches you that you can harness the power of your choices every single day, allowing them to build up to a life-changing effect. It won’t be easy, and it will take effort, often taking a long time to reach your final goal, but it’s a sustainable method that actually works. You’ll see small results almost straight away, but over time those results will turn into huge successes

The key that fits every lock ― consistency

"Slow And Study Wins The Race"

The Compound Effect isn’t about tricks, it’s about positive habits and decisions you make, whilst being consistent. The biggest key to success is certainly consistency; without it, you’ll simply fail before you even begin.

Our author talks about his father and the work ethic that he instilled in him. His painted a huge sign saying “no pain, no gain” on the wall and made sure that our author did his fair share of chores around the house, telling him that intelligence doesn’t matter, looks don’t matter, skill doesn’t matter, and experience doesn’t matter, as long as you’re willing to work hard and not give up on your aim.

We have lost sight of this view as modern marketing has brainwashed us into thinking that we can make a quick buck and watch our success grow. Our grandparents had a firm work ethic, but these days that doesn’t seem to be quite so evident. We forget how important hard work is, but also how important consistency is. Being true and being constant in your aim and your desires is the key to success

Your choices shape your life

Even the smallest choices have the potential to change your life to a huge degree. A tiny change in the way you do something is a choice, a conscious choice to do something differently. This then causes a ripple effect which grows in intensity with more positive choices made.

Small, smart choices + consistency + time = huge differences in your life

The great thing about Compound Effect is that its changes can be seen immediately, they are very predictable and they are also measurable. This makes the journey easier because you can see where you’re going, you have total control, and you can also notice small improvements along the way. The Compound Effect is simple, and that’s what makes it so easy to follow, yet so many people pass it over and go towards the “get rich quick” schemes which don’t work!

We have to make a choice every time we do something, our days are filled with constant choices, and it’s important to be aware of the gravity of every single one. Making positive choices propels you towards what you really want. Your choices in life also reflect back on you, giving you either a positive or a negative mindset.

“In essence, you make your choices, and then your choices make you.”

In order to harness the power of your choices, you need to be more mindful and make conscious choices, rather than making them through habit or familiarity.

In addition to this, you also have to realize that you have responsibility for every single one of your choices, and you can’t blame anyone else when they go wrong. You are responsible for every single thing that you do, the things you choose not to do, and you are also responsible for how you react to things that are done to you. When you realize this, you have total control.

Visualize your success and watch it happen

Our author suggests trying the “scorecard method”. This means choosing one area of your life that you want to change and become more successful. Only choose one at this point, so as not to overwhelm yourself.

You need to visualize the area you really want to focus on and identify your reason for wanting to make a change. If you can visualize success happening before your eyes, it will become all the more believable. Then, you need to shift your mind towards awareness. This means being aware of every single choice you make and therefore making smarter choices as a result.

Our author suggests something called tracking. For instance, if you make the decision to get out of debt, to give you a better financial future, you need to be conscious of every single penny you spend. To do this, write everything down, solidifying awareness of your choices. Tracking your choices also gives you motivation to make even better choices in the future. This will lead you towards wanting to make changes in other areas of your life, which will compound to create a fully successful picture.

It’s also important to realize that it’s never too late to make the changes, and you should never make excuses to not try!

What are your regular habits doing to your life?

We all have habits. Aristotle told us that “we are what we repeatedly do” and that means you can easily find yourself caught in a vicious circle of bad habit effects. Most people continue on with the habits they’re formed, not realizing that they could change these for a healthier, and more practical way of doing things. Taking control of your habits means that you’re able to move your life in the right direction, towards success and your goals.

Many studies have shown that a huge 95% of everything we do, including how we think and feel, is there because of a habit we learnt, either recently or as a child. We are born with instincts, but we develop habits over time. Of course, you have good habits as well as bad ones, but it’s time to identify your bad habits and work to unlearn them instead.

Firstly, you need to identify the habits that are affecting your life and your chances of success. Tracking will help you to do this, but you also need to try the following:
• Identify the triggers which cause you to act in a certain way, e.g. triggers a bad habit.
• Clean your house completely and declutter anything which doesn’t serve you well or you don’t use.
• Swap the bad habit for a positive one.
• Make small changes at first, to acclimatize. If you’ve been performing a bad habit for a while, it might be a shock to change things immediately.
• Cut it out completely if that works better. If you find that making a sudden change is better for you, go for it!

Once you’ve identified and minimized your bad habits, you need to understand your good habits and do more of them. This means giving yourself the best foundation on which to succeed, going public with your goals to reinforce accountability, creating a support network, perhaps finding someone to work alongside you toward success, and indulging in a little healthy competition from time to time. You should also remember that all work and no play is no fun in life, so remember to give yourself a break on occasion.

Forget willpower, try “why power”

Willpower has long been the method of choice when trying to make changes in life, but using willpower is hard and it has many pitfalls attached to it. Once you hit a slight roadblock, you feel like you’ve failed, you find it hard to get back on track. Instead of using the same pattern of failure time and time again, use why power instead.

Why power is based on the idea that the choices you make in life only come to fruition when you know why you want them, and when you can attach a sense of desire to them. Basically, the more you want something, the more you’ll work for it.

Why power is more powerful than willpower because it has the power to push you through difficult times. In order to understand why, you need to identify your core values. These are the things which are important to you and what you stand for. When you don’t know what your core values are, you’ll find it hard to make positive choices in life, so this is something you need to spend time thinking about first of all.

If something doesn’t work with your core values, you simply pass it to one side and don’t do it.

Set your goals the right way

If you don’t set effective goals, how are you supposed to know what you're working towards? Most of us don’t realize how to set goals correctly, and instead we look for what we want to look for.

Many people have learned about the Law of Attraction in the past, assuming it to be some mystical force that attracts things and people into your life at the push of a button. This method is actually far more logical than you think. We have a huge amount of sensory information sent out way every single day and to avoid overload, we ignore most of it, focusing on the few percent which give us what we want. We look for the things we want, and we ignore the rest.

So, when you focus your mind on something, it suddenly appears before your eyes. Is this magic? No! It’s you suddenly noticing what was there all along. When you clearly define your goals you give your brain something new to search for and find, allowing you to notice lights to guide you towards your destination. The most successful people in history all had very clear goals, and that is something you need to work with too.

Nobody likes change

When change occurs in life, it can cause anxiety and disruption. This is normal, nobody likes change and all types of change are hard in some way. Many people decide not to focus on their bad habits because it means facing change, and they don’t like it.

Life cannot move on without change, and whilst it’s hard to accept and face, it is the one thing which will help you move towards success and your defined goals.

It’s also important to remember that it is going to take time when you work to break old habits and whilst trying to make new ones. Remember, habits take a while to form originally, so they’re certainly going to take time to break and unlearn. Be patient!

Welcoming “Big Mo”

Once Big Mo enters your life, you’ll notice success comes far faster. Who is Big Mo? ― Momentum!

Think about a roundabout. When static, a roundabout is hard to push, and when you first start to move it it will barely shift at all. You need to sweat a little, huff and puff and take one or two very slow steps before you notice any type of movement. Step by step, it becomes a tiny bit easier, and as speed picks up with every step, it suddenly starts to move faster, requiring less effort from pushing. The point at which things got easier is when Big Mo paid you a visit, i.e. momentum.

Once Big Mo calls by, things get easier and success comes to you faster.

You can encourage Big Mo to come your way by:
• Be aware of the choices you make and make decisions which are based on your core values and ultimately your goals.
• Adopt positive behaviors and put your choices into action.
• Repeat your new positive behaviors in order to adopt new habits and kick out your old ones.
• Adopt a healthy and positive routine.
• Always be consistent.

Create a routine that leads to success

Making choices and trying to adopt positive behaviors is made infinitely easier by implementing a routine which ticks all the boxes you need for health and wellbeing, whilst also focusing on positivity.

You need to create a new attitude and new patterns of behavior that you repeat on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, being consistent at all times. Your morning routine needs to be strong to give you the best foundation on which to start your day. Our author suggests practicing loving-kindness in the mornings, sending love to someone in your mind to foster a positive mindset. He then suggests thinking about three priorities for that day and evaluating how they fit into the end goal.

In the evening, do a “cash-out” procedure. This means thinking back over your day and asking yourself how it all went, and identifying if you need to carry anything over from that today to the next day, in order to make slow progress. You could also think about using a journal to jot down new ideas or identify bad habits and triggers.

Giving your routines a shake-up every so often is also a good idea, to keep things fresh and energized. It’s important to remember that your goals and your behaviors need to focus on consistency, i.e. they are going to be consistent for the rest of your life. Your plans need to be realistic, so be careful not to overdo things at the start.

Who is influencing you?

Your choices are vitally important and you know that you’re responsible for everything you do and feel, but it’s also vital to realize that your choices are also influenced by outside forces in some cases, too. Ensuring that those influences are positive and not negative is vital if you want to continue to make slow and steady progress toward your goal.

When looking at the people and things which influence your life, examine the following:
• What are you feeding your mind?
• Who are you spending your time with?
• Is your environment positive or negative?

Our author suggests putting yourself on a media diet. The media thrives on sensationalism and creating a buzz, and we are unwittingly pulled into those high impact headlines, giving us a false view of the world. These headlines are so repetitive than they’re secretly working their way into your consciousness, affecting what you believe and how you see the world. Cut down on the amount of media you expose yourself to.

Hit the wall? Climb over it!

Life will throw you difficulties on occasion, and it’s how you respond to them that matters. Our author talks about interviewing Lance Armstrong for the June 2009 cover of Success magazine. Armstrong talked about the difficulties he faced during his career, and how never giving up always brought him results in the end.

“Hitting a wall isn’t an obstacle; it’s an opportunity.”

Never give up when you hit a wall, whether physical or emotion. When things are going well, everything is easy, but when things start to become a little rocky, that’s when you get to prove your true worth.

If you want to add extra weight to your results, ensuring that you have a little lee-way when things perhaps become rough, why not try and go one step further? For instance, if you’re weight training and your program tells you that you need to do 12 reps, you could do the 12 and satisfy your requirements, but you could also do 5 more and exceed results. Try it!

Always opting for the unexpected will also add weight and speed to your achievements. Richard Branson has always been the king of doing the unexpected, e.g. a hot air balloon around the world to promote a new business. We’re not suggesting you attempt something quite so huge, but simply opting for a small thing which nobody would expect will add weight to your achievements and bring you more success.

Conclusion

Slow progress with strong choices will bring you the results you desire. The Compound Effect isn’t about ‘getting rich quick’ and it’s not about clever marketing ploys that turn out to be fads, it’s about a sustainable and progressive approach towards achieving your goals in life.

By being more aware of your choices and focusing on positive habits, rather than negative ones, you’re manifesting success into your life, all by your own doing.

Try this:
• What do you want? Sit down and write a list of the things you want to achieve in your life.
• Knowing what you want gives you a starting point.
• Visualize the thing you want the most. What does it look like? What does it feel like?
• Write a list of your bad habits versus your good habits, and then work towards minimizing the damaging habits in your life.