What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while

I started reading this book, The Happiness Project in the quest to find my source of inspiration or passion for life. It is as if I’m on a mad rush to find my connection to something that makes me feel completely involved and either give me a sense of purpose or a feeling of satisfaction. The quest however continues, but I did fall in love with this quote – what you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while. We are creatures of our habits and these habits have a way of shaping us. It is a funny thing. Initially, we need to actively shape these habits. But over time, these habits have the beautiful way of shaping us completely.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while

Motivation is like bathing, we need to do it everyday: I love these spurts of motivation where I feel like I am effortlessly doing something. However, the problem with this type of motivation is that it doesn’t last long. I keep finding ways to retrace my path to it. The truth is that it is very hard to maintain motivation on a daily basis. I know that Zig Zaglar equates motivation to bathing where we need to do it everyday. But finding that source of inspiration is hard work.

Greatness can be found in spurts, but making it a consistent habit is hard work: Perhaps this is where the difference lies. Everyone can do things when they are motivated. But most people lose this steam and go after the next distraction. Whether we call this perseverance or vision, the bottomline is that sometimes it is a long game. We will have these spurts of greatness in moments. If we however want to call these spurts of greatness on demand, only practice and consistency can help us in this direction.

Sometimes showing up is a stronger skillset than just the talent. What is the message then? It is about doing things when we don’t feel like it. Sometimes, even the best things need practice and forcing ourselves to create these environments where we thrive. It gets difficult with time. No one promised us that it was going to be easy. But, at some point, we convinced ourselves that it is important enough for us. In that sense, it is also about the question of how committed we are to the things that are important at us.

What you do everyday matters more than what you do once in a while – The Happiness Project

Related:

James Clear’s work on Habits is a powerful source of training ourselves to create and build lasting habits. – https://jamesclear.com/habit-guide