Daily Improvements

Why we often fall short of our big goals? Let us take an example of acquiring a skill.

When we are building a new skill (swimming) it is very important to be consistent (go to pool everyday). Every day we keep making tiny improvements and if you put things in bigger time scale the tiny improvements become big (tiny drops make ocean). This is not a rocket science.

But why are we often failing to make "big" improvements. Because of our nature of failing to recognize the tiny improvements we often end up not making an effort for the tiny improvement. The improvement or the increase is tiny and we tend to equate the tiny to negligible (often of no value). We give up thinking that it is difficult or it is not worth trying (whatever it is - the end goal is "zero").

Secondly, the consistency seem to very easy as long as it is consistency (you hit the pool and swim). Because the amount of mental effort needed is less (it appears to be easy). But once the consistency is lost (stop going to pool for a couple of days), the mental effort to bring in consistency is highly difficult (no room for context switch and focus should be spot on). It is mentally tough.