Faith is the Foundation, but Action is the Architecture
I am Type A personality... always have been. I like to do things a certain way and I’m big on the pursuit of excellence.
“We are not doing anything halfway over here.”
I also tend to have a lot of ideas—good ones, I think—which is great in that I’m always looking for solutions, but overwhelming in that I’ve always struggled to figure out what idea to pursue. Couple that with that whole "gotta be perfect" trait and it equated to, yeah, absolutely nOTHING.
Waiting for the perfect idea, with the perfect, more excellent circumstances, was driving me crazy. The more I brainstormed an idea, the more I realized how much I didn't know about it, making me feel like it couldn't possibly be the "right" idea, so I would scrap it and move on to the next.
Pretty soon I realized I wasn’t doing anything. I finally had to get to a place where I had to be honest with myself: I’m not as smart as I think I am (that's a hard one). I don't need to have everything in order to start; one thing will open into the next and the next and so forth—which is a crazy concept when you want perfection all at once. Finally, and this is the hard one: I was going to have to be patient and trust the process when I couldn’t see the entire journey.
We often hear that we need to "believe in ourselves," and while that’s a cute starting point, it’s a fragile one if it stands alone. Our own understanding is limited; our energy fluctuates, and our perspective is often clouded by the immediate hurdles in front of us. To truly move mountains, we need a mixed approach that cannot be defeated: Faith, Action and the Compound Effect. None of these are easy. period! Sorry, if you were looking for the 20 second minimal effort plan… wrong blog. You still here? Great.. this is what you need to know… patience is THE primary component to the compound effect. You have to be willing to see it through, and that’s hard because you have to push past the small gains to get to the major ones.
When I say small gains, I mean so small you can’t even perceive them. Like before you lose 20 lbs. (totally can see), you have to lose 3 ounces (yeah, that part). But it’s those 3 ounces that get you to those pounds. Most of us give up because we want immediacy. Nope. That’s where faith comes in; faith in the principles of math, of compounding, and of momentum. It’s the belief that principles work and that they will work even when I can’t see them working.
Next is action. This is where we have to accept the truth that "faith without works is dead." In modern terms, you can have all the vision in the world, but if you don’t put some work behind that vision, that vision remains a vapor. Faith isn't just a feeling (STOP JUST SAYING YOU BELIEVE!); it is the courage to take the first step when you can’t see the whole journey. It’s trusting the Law of Momentum, which is not a mystery but a mathematical certainty. It is the result of the Compound Effect, the strategy of reaping huge rewards from a series of consistent small intentional choices.
You are limited in what you know, but you are not limited in what you can do today. It is physically and spiritually impossible to act in your "now" and not see an effect “tomorrow”. Every small, consistent and intentional action you take is a deposit into a future you haven’t met yet. Momentum produces more momentum. When you stop worrying about conquering the entire journey and start focusing on being faithful with the "little things"—those 3-ounce wins—you trigger a chain reaction. You don't need to be perfect; you just need to start. So pick one thing today and DO THAT!