Frequently, I did not want to practice. Even more frequently, I did not want to go to my lesson, especially if I’d been lazy during practice. Yet the activity was non-discretionary. I had no choice. I kept at it for six years. I was by no means a brilliant student, but at the end of those six years, I was astonished at how far I’d come and what I'd accomplished by that consistent little habit of daily practice, like a steady drip of water wearing away a rock.
Small Habits Build Big Skills
This question of little daily disciplines is the subject of the book “The Slight Edge” by Jeff Olson. In it, he teaches us not to neglect the mundane, for hidden within our simple, everyday actions are the seeds of tremendous success or catastrophic failure. The elegance of Olson’s idea consists in its simplicity. In spite of the common-sense nature of the book’s thesis, once you perceive its importance, it has the power to change the way you think about all aspects of your life, and, consequently, their outcomes.Olson argues that the raw material we can forge into achievement in any area of life are the little virtues or habits we perform each day, what he calls “simple daily disciplines.” We already know how to be successful if we combine this knowledge with an understanding of the power of discipline. These “simple productive actions, repeated consistently over time” are the definition of “the slight edge,” the term from which the book’s title is derived. Olson presents the idea in the formula, “consistently repeated daily actions + time = unconquerable results.”
The trick, as Olson points out, is that the ingredients of success are, in fact, so simple, so small, so humble, that we often overlook them. In Olson’s words, they are “easy to do,” but also “easy not to do.” Examples Olson offers include “taking a few dollars out of a paycheck, putting it into savings, and leaving it there. Or doing a few minutes of exercise every day—and not skipping it. Or reading 10 pages of an inspiring, educational, life-changing book every day. Or taking a moment to tell someone how much you appreciate them, and doing that consistently, every day, for months and years.”
Easy things to do. But easy not to do, as well. And in addition to the ease of neglecting such simple daily disciplines, we face the challenge of the invisibility of their effects. It’s not, of course, that small habits like saving $50 each month or exercising for 10 minutes every day have no visible effect—it’s that the effect isn’t visible right away. In our culture that prizes speed, efficiency, and immediate results, we often give up when the hoped-for progress doesn’t manifest itself right away. Health and weight loss doesn’t come from eating healthy food for a single day, or a week, or a month, or even, sometimes, several months. But by the time a year or more has passed, the consistent healthy meals will have dramatically affected your health—if you make it that far.
The Snowball Effect
Another profound truth conveyed by Olson’s book is that the slight edge works both ways, for you and against you. Small, seemingly trivial mistakes or errors of judgement repeated over a period of time can lead to huge failures. Olson says of the slight edge, “it’s already working, right now, either for you or against you.” The difference between an upward or downward life trajectory is sometimes a mere cobweb’s width apart.Olson calls on us to be mindful of how these little habits—many of which we scarcely notice—are building us up or tearing us down, right now. “Most of us live with one foot planted firmly in the past and the other tucked timidly in the future—never in the moment ... The Slight Edge is all about living in the moment.” We rarely seem to value the present moment as we should, and, we underestimate its power. “After all,” we think, “this one purchase won’t make me go broke,” or “this one donut, right now, won’t make me overweight.” We exacerbate the problem further by putting off good actions until the future. “I’ll start tomorrow…” But the truth is, one’s ostensibly small decisions in the present moment, compounded over time, create success or failure in any domain of life.
Olson’s message applies to everyone, but it’s particularly important for teenagers and younger kids to learn since it will guide their steps into the ways of success and prosperity in so many of life’s arenas, just like the experience of the piano lessons aided me in myriad ways: academics, writing, and even the practice of virtue (I hope, at least).
Due to a lack of life experience, many teens may not have learned about the incredible payoff of discipline maintained consistently because that takes time to see. After all, even with the advantage of many more years of experience, plenty of adults fail to appreciate this knockout combination of time and consistent, small habits.
Conversely, teens are also in a position to benefit the most from the principles of the slight edge. As Olson’s daughter writes in one of the chapters, “I love talking about the slight edge philosophy with the next generation ... because the most abundant resource available to them is time ... because they have so many years still in front of them, they have a unique opportunity to put the slight edge into effect in their lives.”
Though I could quibble with the shallowness of Olson’s chapter on happiness, overall, the book is a highly readable guide to understanding and applying the principles of simple, repeated daily actions to improve any aspect of your life. It’s a great reminder for adults, and a particularly important eye-opener for younger readers as well.
