Daily practices to enable exponential growth

For some reason, I hate the word "habit." Maybe it's my lifelong struggle to actually commit to doing certain things I know I should be doing, but the word "habit" just overwhelms me and makes me want to shut off my brain. Though it's all semantics, I like the word "practice" much better. There's something more forgiving about having a "practice," and the emphasis seems to be more on the showing up part rather than doing it perfectly that my brain associates with "habits."

I came to an interesting realization after completing my real estate course, which is that small efforts everyday lead to meaningful gains over time. Even just after a month, you can really start to see the impact (but not necessarily before). I realize this is all obvious known fact about habit-building 101, but it is different to actually experience something compared to knowing it because you read it in a book. I made a commitment to review the relevant chapters we went over in class later each day and was pleasantly surprised by how much I felt like I had learned and how much information actually stuck to my brain when the course was over. I ended up not having to study very much to pass the school exam because I had been building my knowledge base over the previous 3 weeks. I guess I was struck by how little you have to put in to reap a reward. I wasn't studying for hours, but I was consistent about reading the relevant chapters and doing all of the practice questions and then reviewing on the weekends as needed. I was also surprised at the compounding effects. The first couple of weeks, I still felt overwhelmed with all the information and didn't really feel like I was properly absorbing all of the content, but by the end of the course, I could tell the rate of absorption was quicker and deeper.

This experience has made me realize that I want to start incorporating small practices into daily life so that at the end of the month, season, or year, I can experience exponential growth in areas that matter to me. To start, I decided to focus on 3 things to do everyday: do 10 push-ups (any kind, any level of difficulty), write something (can be a single sentence, a paragraph, or more), and spend five minutes learning about trading and options. I'm day 4 into this new system, and it's been working pretty well. Because the threshold of effort is pretty low, it's hard not to do them. Compared to a habit, which can feel discouraging if you lose your streak, the concept of daily practices feel more encouraging in the sense that they are intentional opportunities to just show up. You could do more, but you don't have to. As we know, showing up is more than half the battle.

What's interesting is that now I want to incorporate a whole bunch of practices because there are lots of areas I'd love to experience exponential growth in, but I'm realizing that I'm overwhelming myself by having too long of a list. As usual, the struggle lies in balance. It makes sense to commit to 3-5 practices first, but also it feels like I should be able to do more since I am completely in control of my schedule right now. I probably will focus on these three for the next week or so and add in a few others that make sense over time. And now, I'm off to do my ten push-ups for the day.