When it comes to achieving goals, your actions today will create your tomorrow.

There is nothing that we do today that does not, in some form or fashion, have an impact on what tomorrow will bring. And today was designed for us by, among other things, everything we did yesterday.

Our actions all have a compounding effect, and over time small repeated actions produce extremely large results.

A person who is 60 pounds overweight did not get there because of that extra slice of pizza they had for dinner last night, they achieved this milestone through a practiced regimen of repeatedly consuming the very foods that bring about weight gain.

The salesperson who wakes up in the morning to an empty calendar, created that blank page by all they did, and didn’t do, the day before. And the day before that.

We Delude Ourselves

We delude ourselves when we think it doesn’t matter if we just have that tiny sliver of chocolate cake and when we elect not to spend every waking moment ensuring that our calendar is filled with meetings with potential clients.

Our every tomorrow is designed and created by our every today, and whenever we choose to do what we know we shouldn’t be doing, or decide not to do what we know we should be doing, we push the future we want further and further beyond our grasp.

Doing this may well provide us with some short-term pleasure but it also assures long-term pain.

The sages of old informed us that there is no such thing as an action or a behaviour that does not produce a consequence, and that the consequences of everything we do, or don’t do, today will reflect in the quality of each tomorrow.

Everything Counts

Embracing The Habit of Creating Tomorrow Today gives us a firm understanding of a truth we cannot ignore: everything counts. By practicing The Habit of Creating Tomorrow Today we provide ourselves an opportunity – a brief intervention – that reminds us to examine the long-term consequences of actions we are about to take and re-evaluate whether we should or shouldn’t.

When we examine where we are today, we are precisely where we are because of all those things we did, or did not do in the past days, weeks, months and years. Our present life is the cumulative effect of all the choices we have made in our past.

Over time, we develop, practice and reinforce a myriad of patterns that become so ingrained we are not even aware that other choices exist. So, the next time you are down in the dumps, feel trapped or wonder just how the heck you ended up where you are, you need only ask yourself two questions: firstly, how did I mastermind this, and secondly, and perhaps more importantly, what do I need to do to change it?

Achieving Goals

If weight loss is your goal, you now know that little sliver of chocolate cake really does count. If building your business is your desire, you now know keeping a potential client waiting while you enjoy lunch with a friend also counts.

And sneaking out a little bit early each day really counts if getting promoted, and climbing the ladder, is what you really aspire to.

We all seem to want bigger and better from life, yet we conveniently ignore that it is the compounding effect of those little things we continuously do, or neglect to do, that prevents us from ever having those bigger and better things.

The Habit of Creating Tomorrow Today is the driving force behind who and what we are. Recognizing this to be an immutable truth empowers us to use this unavoidable habit to move us closer and closer to the lives we want. Or further and further away.

So, make sure you make the right choices. Every day. Because everything really does count.

Let’s make a habit of meeting like this.