I break down almost all my growth into those three steps. See the now. Figure out exactly where you are right now. See the future. Figure out exactly where you want to go. See the next step. Figure out exactly what you need to do next. Surprisingly that simple philosophy has made about 90% of my growth.
I think the real reason people don’t slow down is because most people can’t visualize how a single step contributes to the end result. Because every step works upon the ones before it, your next action often seems insignificant compared to the whole. The human brain isn’t very good at counting out a geometric progression. Take this example:
Let’s say I’m really good at folding paper. I take out a large, regular thickness piece of paper and start folding it. After one fold, the thickness of the paper has doubled. After two folds, its quadrupled. Now let’s say that I keep doing this and fold the paper fifty times. How thick will it be?
I like asking this question because to this date I haven’t had a single person answer correctly. Some people make a linear guess like five inches. Other people who understand that it progresses exponentially may wager a hundred or two hundred feet. But because the human mind wasn’t designed to think exponentially, most people don’t even come close.
The real distance after folding 50 times is approximately the distance between the earth and the sun. Go ahead, break out a calculator and multiply paper thickness by 2^50 if you don’t believe me.
https://www.scotthyoung.com/blog/2007/04/12/avoiding-motivation-burnout/