The worst traps are the ones you don’t even see. You stumble into them blindly and fall, to your own detriment.
There are mental traps, too. Beliefs that harm you and hold you back because you can’t see another way. You can’t see the right way.
“Toil Upward?”
“Fine. Sign me up. I’m willing to work. Show me how.”
The name of this blog was inspired by a poem I found after failing to climb a (literal) mountain.
“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The poem could mean a lot of things to you.
To me, it’s about avoiding the hidden trap of ambition. The trap of ignoring the power of consistency. Of trying to climb the mountain in one step.
There is pain in the gap between where you are and where you want to be. If you’re like me, you feel it almost constantly. You’re obsessed by it.
You want nothing more than to jump the gap. Today. Right now. To be there on the other side, immediately.
But it doesn’t work like that. You try to make that jump all at once and you’ll fall, into the gap, down into I-don’t-even-know. Something not good.
There’s a better way. An honest way.
It’s all about getting 1% better.
On its own, 1% isn’t much. It’s next to nothing. You could try 1% harder than yesterday almost without noticing.
The power of 1% comes when you compound it over time.
Let’s say you dedicate yourself to getting better at something. You commit to being disciplined and getting 1% better every single day.
Let’s say today you’re a Level 1.0 at whatever that thing is for you. It could be anything.
If you get 1% better today, then tomorrow you’ll be a Level 1.01. The next day you’ll be a 1.02.
Stay disciplined for a week, and you’ll be a 1.07. That’s a 7% improvement from where you started.
Stay disciplined for a month? You’ll be a 1.35. A 35% improvement. Imagine being 35% better at anything. That’s huge.
What if you stuck with it? What if you got 1% better every single day for a year? What level do you think you’d be at?
Level 3? Level 4? A 400% improvement? Wrong.
You’d be a Level 37.8. That’s a 3,780% improvement from where you started. In a year. Just by getting 1% better.
We underestimate the power of compounding. The power of getting just a little bit better every day.
We also underestimate the magnitude of getting just a little bit worse every day. A little bit more rusty. 1% more lazy.
If instead of doing 1% better each day, you did 1% worse. After a year, you’d only be at a Level 0.03. You’d lose 97% of what you had when you started.
1.01^365 = 37.8
0.99^365 = 0.03
That’s what toiling upward is all about. It’s the recognition that there is no shortcut. There is no way to jump the gap except to work hard every day. Working to get stronger and smarter and more helpful. To hone your skills and improve them.
Toiling Upward is about the 1%, and the commitment to do the work, and live it every single day.
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