Many people talk about compound interest but few talk about compound effort. The idea of compounding doesn’t just apply to money and finances but it applies to your effort as well. Every time you get knocked down, you learn something different to come back even stronger than before.
The effort you put in today isn’t wasted time. It was a fruitful venture. Even if you learned what not to do, that’s still valuable information you didn’t have before. That’s why putting in the effort every day is helpful. When I first started my new job in January 2022, I didn’t know anything.
However, over time, I needed less guidance. I asked less questions. There was no need for anyone else to hold my hand anymore as time passed because effort compounds. We have things called memory that helps us remember what to do and what not to do the next time we wake up.
Compound effort is a powerful idea because your life adds up over time. Time is what makes the difference between the people who practice good habits and the people who don’t practice good habits. Your effort today doesn’t matter nor will it matter a year from now.
However, in a decade from now is what makes the difference between someone who put in good work and someone who did. In just six short years, I gained so much knowledge about my efforts on what works and what doesn’t work.
As a result, what takes someone 30 minutes to finish only takes me 10 minutes to do so.
What is Compound Effort?
Compound effort is effort that adds up in a cumulative manner over time. It’s effort that you put in today that allows you to learn the effectiveness of the effort. For example, my blog. When I first started my blog, I didn’t know what I was doing at all. I was way in over my head.
I could argue that I still don’t know what to do but I definitely know how to blog better than I did a year and a half ago. It’s the result of effort that compounded, effort that I don’t need to repeat through my journey to learning how to be an effective blogger.
There’s less time investment that I need to make as time went on.
All I have to focus on these days is on creating valuable content for my readers and to better their financial lives. That’s all I need to do. I’ve come a long way in two years when it comes to blogging. Aside from blogging, my entire life has benefited from compound effort as well.
There’s no need in wondering what I need to do throughout the week or the weekend. I know what I need to do and what I want to do, it’s become almost a routine. My efforts are not going to make any difference to my life today or even next year.
But I know it’s going to make a difference in the subsequent years.
It’s akin to the 10,000 hour rule. The more hours you put in and the more effort you put in will position you to be better than someone who doesn’t put in those hours. The things you learn today will help you tomorrow. And so on, and so on, until you level up to the highest level you can level up to.
Why Compound Effort Matters
One reason why compound effort matters is that you can SMASH that social share button and post to your favorite social media! Your friends might want to be giving up after six months worth of effort. THat’s not when they should be giving up.
That’s when they are realizing that that’s just the start!
It would great help them out. So with that said, let’s go over the reasons why compound effort matters!
1) It’s Who We Are
We are not who we are because of some innate thing we can’t control. We are who we are because of our choices. The things we spend the most time on is what makes up who we are. Compound effort is what matters into shaping ourselves. That’s why it matters.
We don’t value the things we say we value. We value the things we spend the most time focusing on. Through our actions. It’s our interests, after all. Your future comes faster than you know. It’s been six years since I graduated college. Six years seemed so far away. Not so much anymore.
Reflect on your values and see what you spend your time on the most. It’s what matters to you. Are you going to sit around after work and do nothing? Or are you going to put in the time to create a side hustle that generates $1k/month after a year or two? Your effort shapes your life.
2) We Compete Against Ourselves
We are not competing against others. We are competing against our past selves. As long as you are progressing from the year before, you are doing just fine. Therefore, compound effort matters in helping you compete against yourself. Others just may be on a different path than you. That’s OK.
Some of my friends are married already in their early 20’s. Some of my friends are heading to grad school. We all have different paths and interests we are pursuing. This is where your effort comes into play. Are you a better person than you were last year? Are you progressing?
It’s all that we can hope for. By not caring about what others are doing and only caring about ourselves, we can progress at a pace that we are comfortable with. You don’t want to pass 10 years of your life and find out that you are even at a lower point than before. Building that effort matters in the end.
3) Knowledge Builds Up
When I first started my career, I knew nothing about the world. Therefore, my pay accurately reflected that. However, as time passed, my knowledge built up. I know how something works more now and there’s less questions I need to ask my bosses for help.
Knowledge builds up because we have things that are called memory. Memory is what makes us better than the day before because we know what to avoid and what to move towards. Knowledge is powerful and it ultimately makes a difference in your life by the end.
Compound effort works because we have memory. We are the smartest animals Earth has ever seen. This is why, in general, positive progress happens the majority of the time than negative progress. Knowledge builds us up in ways that we don’t even realize because it happens to us so naturally.
Where to Apply Compound Effort
So now that you know how compound effort is important where do you apply it? There are many ways to apply it!
1) Health
You don’t become healthy because you go to the gym that one time. You are healthy because you put in effort to working out over months and years. People don’t lift 100 pounds in a single day of working out. It’s about showing up all the time and then one day you become strong enough to lift 100 pounds.
Compound effort applies to health and working out because it builds your body up. When I first started working out again in June 2022, I became sore just the day afterwards. Now, months later, I can run a half mile and still feel good afterwards. Your health compounds and your body definitely takes notice.
By the way, working out is NOT something you should only do when you feel like it. Working out is a necessity. We have to get our heart rate up. We are not meant to live a sedentary lifestyle where we sit throughout the majority of our day.
Spend some time in the gym regularly and you’ll be surprised at the results.
2) Relationships
That one phone call to catch up doesn’t just end there. People take note and actually remember the effort you put in the relationships, like calling them for their birthday. They remember who was there for them in their special days and they remember who was there for them when it was their college graduation.
Compound effort applies to relationships because one meeting doesn’t make everything cold. It still warms you up for the next interaction you have with them. Even a simple 30 minute phone call every couple of months makes a huge difference. Especially if it’s with your closest friends.
Your closest friends understand and know just how busy you are so by the time that you get to see them again, even after a year of not talking, it still feels just like old times. That’s what makes a real solid friendship a real one and not a superficial one.
The ones who will stick by your side no matter what.
3) Career
Your career is the ultimate compound effort. We don’t come out of the gate making six figures with the relationships all built and ready to go. We have to build our career over the long term. No one became CEO overnight. I am slowly building my career to where I want it to be.
It’s taking me six long years but I’m feeling like I’m finally making a fair bit of headway. Now, I don’t worry about getting a raise or maximizing my income. I’m worrying about building relationships, doing good work, and making an impact at the company.
It’s taken me six years but I finally feel like I made it.
It’s amazing to know that I’m just getting started, too. I am so excited to see what the next six years of my career will unfold. There’s a lot of plans that I want to implement and make sure that I see through to completion.
Your career is your ultimate project that you can control. Don’t waste the opportunity.
What Compound Effort is All About
Compound effort is ALL about forming positive habits that are helpful to your life. You don’t want to spend so much time living that at the end of the day you wonder where all that time went. Compound effort is a powerful force that can work for you but it’s also a powerful force that can work against you.
Too many people don’t realize it and just spend their time going through life without a care in the world. It’s your future, your choices, and at the end of the day, your life. It’s not going to be an easy journey because there are people competing against you to better their lives as well.
You may have to work harder than the next person but that’s completely OK. Your energy, drive, determination, and grit will get you to where you want to be. Your future doesn’t create itself for you, you have to go out and create your own future. It means your life is completely within your control.
Personal finance answers come to me very easily now. I don’t question where my money should go because it comes to be like second nature. That’s after years and years of seeing what works and what doesn’t work. Compound effort is all about adding to the knowledge you found out the day before.
One day, it snowballs into a mountain of force. A mountain so big that no one will be able to climb it because of the knowledge you built over the years. Your mind is what makes the difference between your successful life and an unsuccessful life.
The great thing is, no one can take your mind away from you.
Compound Effort Makes or Breaks Your Life
I didn’t get to have a multi-six figure net worth in my mid-20’s because I didn’t put in the work every day. I got there because I put in the work every single day and trusted that it would work out one day. I’m so glad that it did. Now, the subsequent years should come much easier than before.
If I can 10x my net worth in just six years on a low starting income, I can only imagine just how much further I can go in another six years when on a high starting income. If I can 10x in six years again, then that will be amazing. It’s even more amazing to know that it’s more than possible to do so.
Your life today is a result of accumulation of choices you’ve made in the past 2 – 3 years. Your life 2 – 3 years from now will be a result of the choices you make today. Today’s choices will be meaningless and tomorrow’s choices will be meaningless.
However, the choices you continuously do in the next years matter.
While others are worrying about the latest Netflix shows, you can worry about how to move up in life. How to actually better your life by putting in the work and effort. We are living in one of the most opportunity abundant countries in the entire world. Why would you squander that?
Why would you waste the opportunity that you are given? There’s no reason to do so. You have full control of where you end up in the next years. It’s all about putting in the effort day after day and letting the consistency principle work for you. Compound effort gets you there.
