The Awesome Transformational Power of Stacking Up “Quick Wins”
Get this right, and it becomes very, VERY easy to reach impressive goals
Momentum is one of the single most motivating forces available to humans on this planet, and stacking up a series of quick wins is how you get it.
In this article, I’m going to show you how to build unstoppable momentum, and I’m also going to share several non-obvious insights that will help accelerate your progress even more.
To begin with, however, you should remember that everything goes slower initially. For a simple example to kick things off, gaining your first 1,000 Instagram followers takes much longer than going from 10,000–15,000 followers, even though this truth is hard to grasp intuitively.
It seems like the endless slog that we faced in the beginning is going to last forever and that we’ll always be fighting, scratching, and clawing our way to the top, when the reality is that our progress becomes easier once we’ve gained some early victories.
The difference maker is momentum!
It’s just like pushing a flywheel: those first few rotations are very rough going, where you’re going to have to put forth every single thing you have within you just to make the flywheel move even the tiniest bit.
But then, once you get going, things start to pick up. And that, interestingly enough, is what’s so messed up about quitting!
At the very moment that you’re most tempted to give up — when every workout just sucks, when nobody is returning your sales calls, and every woman is turning you down for a date — that’s when you’re most likely to start gaining serious traction. Things are the toughest right before they’re about to get easier.
Where Are All These Quick Wins Hiding?
Quick wins are the answer to the problem of giving up too early and the problem of generating momentum. Luckily for all of us, they’re hidden everywhere in life. You just need to know where to look and how to access them. And, perhaps just as importantly, you need to be able to recognize their value.
Understand: Once you secure an early victory for yourself, you’re incentivized by human nature and human psychology to go after another one right afterward.
Winning feels amazing, and you need to generate that feeling within yourself as often as possible. Every single day. Seriously — we’re winning all the time, but we hardly ever stop to appreciate it.
Here are some easy examples of some quick wins you could get today:
If you’re a writer, sit down in your chair, open your web browser, log onto your writing platform of choice, and type just one sentence. As Steven Pressfield says, put your ass where your heart wants to be.
If you’re trying to get in shape, look up a sample workout plan online and print it out so that you can feel it in your hands. Or set your workout clothes by the door. You don’t even have to put them on! Even just laying them out is a win.
If it’s some damn inner peace you’re after, sit down and close your eyes for 30 seconds of meditation — you know, that thing you’ve always told yourself you would start doing every morning. Just do it THIS morning. Give yourself a win.
If you’ve decided that today is the day you’re going to read more (and hey, I’ve got plenty of book recommendations for you!), just pick up a book from your shelf and open it to the very first page. Read just one sentence. Then the next. Then maybe see if you can’t get through 2 whole pages. My guess is that you probably can.
See, none of these things are going to launch your writing career, give you lasting inner peace, or make you a Mr. Olympia contender. But they’re wins.
They’re early victories, and you’ve just claimed them for yourself. And, since you’ve done it once, you can do it again.
There are endless examples I could give here about where to go to earn your first win of the day, but what it all comes down to is how you want to begin forming your identity, which will be personal to you.
It’s about what you want to win at, what you want to create today, and what you’re going after in life.
It’s about becoming a winner. Becoming the kind of person who does shit, who stacks up wins, and never looks back. This kind of bulletproof identity is only formed over time, but it has to be begun today.
Who You ARE is What You Repeatedly DO
In one of the best books on habit formation ever written (and one that most people are honestly kinda sick of hearing about!), Atomic Habits, James Clear makes the profound point that we need to act our way into our new identity.
We don’t think about what kind of person we want to be and then become that person; rather, we do things that our ideal self would do, and that creates the identity we want.
All of us look for signs about who we are and what we’re about — evidence of who we are, and this comes mostly from our actions. Stacking up quick wins is literally the fastest way to do this.
Understand: What you want to do is bombard yourself with so much evidence that this is who you are and how you behave that you are forced to conclude that you are your ideal self.
You might still have 100lbs to lose, but if you lose just 1lb this week, then you have become someone who has lost weight — and is losing weight. You are that person now. Now keep going.
If you have a business idea that you want to get off the ground and you sign up for a free WordPress site, then you become someone who is in the process of starting their own business.
You are now someone who talks to attractive strangers and asks them out on dates. You are now someone who reads. You are now someone who goes to the gym. You are now someone who makes one more sales call even when they don’t feel like it. Especially when they don’t feel like it.
What you’ve just done? What you’ve just climbed? That’s a mountain in itself. You’ve started — you’ve budged the flywheel forward — and you’re not stopping.
The question now becomes:
“What ELSE can I do?”
Today is the Only Day That Exists
We’re almost done here, and just by reading this article through to the end (thank you) and thinking about how you can apply these ideas today…you’ve already secured a win for yourself.
I just want to mention, though, that this is a “one day at a time” kind of process. We can’t get ahead of ourselves here. We need to bring our focus back to today and keep asking ourselves where we will find that first win. And then the next one.
“Where’s my next victory at?”
That’s what we need to keep asking ourselves. But we can’t try to win tomorrow’s battles while we’re still wrestling with today.
The past doesn’t exist anymore, and the future will never exist. All we have is right now, and right now is the only time we ever have any power.
It’s said that if you lose an hour in the morning, you’ll be chasing it all day, and that’s right on. You need to win now, but let tomorrow’s victories take care of themselves. It’s a balance between dreaming BIG and acting small. Don’t think small, but act small. THINK BIG, and act small.
Bring it back to today. Always be on the lookout for your next win, and when the opportunity presents itself, strike with controlled aggression. You’re craving that win, you’re confident that you’re a winner, and you realize that your time is now.
You’re Already Winning — All the Time!
In closing, I just want to point out — again — that we’re winning all the time and don’t even realize it.
You’ve just finished reading this article…that’s a victory. You’ve probably also done several other important and impressive things today too. Don’t sell yourself short. Life is tough; it’s hard and dangerous, and even getting up out of bed to face it is a courageous act. You’re courageous. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that you’re not. Especially yourself.
And remember, the most important way to measure your progress is from where you started, not where someone else is today, where you would like to be today, or where someone else says you should be by such and such an age. That’s all nonsense.
I won’t give you the whole “man in the arena” speech, because I think you get the idea by now. Don’t let me stand in the way of your impending victory. Go out and get yourself some!
All the best,
Matt Karamazov