Small Steps, Big Results: The Power of Incremental Change in Achieving Your New Year's Resolutions

Resolve to make incremental changes to nail it in 2023!

The new year is full of great intentions. However, without a plan, it’s just a wish… or dream.

How can we ensure to experience success and achieve lasting results? Create a habit that leads to incremental change.

Small habits compound over time. If you can get just 1 percent better each day, you’ll end up with results that are nearly 37 times better after one year.

SOURCE: Atomic Habits by James Clear

Ahh... the miracle of compounding!

Carl Richards, from Behavior Gap, provides a beautiful illustration of incremental change:

I experienced it firsthand when I used to ride road bikes with a semi-competitive group. I remember when I first joined the group, it felt like a big victory if I could just keep up with them for the first 15 minutes. After a while, that became the first half-hour. Then an hour. One day, almost without even noticing it, I was suddenly able to stick with the pack for the entire ride.

I didn’t feel a lot faster because I wasn’t a lot faster… at least, not compared to yesterday or even last week. In fact, I was just a little faster than I was last month. But month after month, ride after ride, it all added up. All those little bits of “faster” started to compound on top of one another, and that is how I was able to keep up in the end. Incrementally.

Of course, this doesn’t just apply to riding bikes…

This is the sneaky power of incremental change. You make a small improvement, that becomes the new normal, you get used to it. You make a small improvement again. That becomes the new normal again. You get used to it again. On and on the cycle goes.

Because incremental change is so sneaky, we barely ever notice we are getting closer to our goal, and then (again, seemingly “all of a sudden”) we’re there!

Because real change doesn’t happen all at once. Real change is incremental.

We can experience the power of compounding and exponential growth in many ways:

automate your savings
ask questions
learn something new
health & fitness
happiness & gratitude
relationships with friends & family
pursue your passion

What are you waiting for? By focusing on making small, consistent improvements, we can make steady progress and eventually achieve significant results.

Further Reading:

To living your ideal life,
The Paradigm Team

Paradigm Advisors is a fee-only financial planning firm based in Dallas, Texas and Fayetteville, Arkansas. Paradigm Advisors provides comprehensive financial planning and investment management services to help clients organize, grow and protect their wealth throughout life’s journey. Paradigm specializes in advising well-established career executives through financial planning and investment management. As a fee-only fiduciary and independent financial advisor, Paradigm never receives commission of any kind. Paradigm is legally bound by certification to provide unbiased and trustworthy financial advice.