Happy 2018 – Day 118 – The power of Compound Interest

I only discovered recently discovered ‘compound interest,’ which according to Albert Einstein, is the most powerful force in the universe.

The basic idea is that just as you gain interest on your savings in your bank, so too do your actions and habits. You get more than you bargained for. 

If you get better at something by 1% every day, compounded daily, you’d actually get better by 3,800% each year.

Imagine that you invested 10 minutes per day in some kind of self-reflection task with the aim of simply improving your morning. After a month, you might well reflect that you feel a lot happier on a morning, and more motivated to face the challenges of the day.

If you keep this up however, you might notice ‘interest’ too. Maybe you’d find that you were generally happier; more motivated to exercise; thinking of others more and yourself less; eating healthier foods; loving yourself a little more.

One of the biggest problems I’ve had in my approach to self-improvement is that I tend to have an ‘all or nothing’ approach. If I’m not going to work out for an hour, then it’s not worth bothering at all. If I don’t have time to read a chapter of the book each night, then I won’t bother.

The power of compound interest teaches that any action, no matter how small, can bring about positive rewards.

It teaches that it’s always better to do something as opposed to nothing.

Even if you’re walking forward so slowly, with such tiny steps, that it’s almost impossible to see; you are still walking forward. And the more you keep moving in right direction, the more speed you’ll pick up along the way.