In the book The Compound Effect the author Darren Hardy poses an interesting question. Would you rather have 3 million dollars in your pocket today or a penny that doubles in value every day?
Seems like an easy choice right? Give me that 3 million and let me go buy some exotic pants and other stuff I don’t need ASAP! But if you break down the numbers it changes things a little.
At day 14 you would feel like a sucker if you chose the penny option. I’m over there taking selfies with tigers and you have $81 and some change.
By day 20 you’re doing pretty good, but still you only have a little over $5,000. But things start picking up towards the end of the month.
At day 29, you’ve almost caught me. You’ve got $2.7 million!
Then you wake up the next day and you have $5.4 million. Then on your final day of compounding that one penny, you wind up with a whopping $10,737,418.24 to be exact. Thank you very much penny.
I share this story with you for one reason. Your health and fitness works the same way.
I see it all the time with clients who have been beating their head against the wall because they are barely losing weight or inches even though they are doing the right thing. One pound here, couple inches there.
Then it happens, the tide starts to turn. All the sudden it seems like the weight is falling off!
This time period is different for everybody. I’ve seen some people that it takes a few months before it pays off. For some it can take much longer.
For one of my clients it took a full year to really see great results! She had a very stressful life, poor sleeping habits, and some medications that were holding her back but she kept at it.
She found ways to reduce the stress in her life, she found a sleep routine that worked for her, and she talked with her doctor about changing around some of her medications. This was along with eating better and exercising consistently.
No part of that is easy. That was a long, frustrating year for her but she said something pretty powerful to me though when I asked her how she stayed motivated. She said:
“Well, I can either keep plugging away at this or just quit and be miserable the rest of my life.”
Yes! Those really are your two options. Stay in the fight, keep tweaking your holistic program (exercise, diet, stress, sleep), and be consistent with what you do. Because one day it will happen, but only if you keep at it.
Don’t give up, you don’t have to be unhappy but you do have to work. Are you willing to do that? If so, I’m here to help however I can.
