Day 6: Learn to Earn

One of the biggest barriers to success is lack of action due to our inability to get over a mental hurdle.

If we want to achieve something big and significant in our lives — anything — it begins with discipline and repetition of positive behaviors over time.

The secret is: smaller steps over a long period of time will have a greater effect on our lives than bigger steps in a shorter period of time. The reason is that most of us cannot commit to these big, abnormal acts for long, but we can do smaller, easier things consistently.

Example: Attempting to save $200/month when you’ve previously saved nothing, is much harder than taking the change out of your pocket every night and putting it in a jar to save for later.

It’s easier to commit to the small act of saving change. In the long run, that small act will make all the difference, because you’ll actually do it, rather than get frustrated when you can’t meet a larger goal.

On Day 4: Money Bucket, we talked about the FREE auto-saving apps Digit and Qapital. One simple and soon task you can do today is sign up for one of these accounts. Savings no matter how small will add up to big savings over time.

I want to leave you with this story: Actor Will Smith was 11 years old when his father asked him and his brother to rebuild a brick wall that had been torn down. Naturally, Will and his brother protested and said it was “impossible,” but his father insisted and the boys got to work. A year and a half later, the wall was complete and Will and his brother learned a valuable lesson.