INCREMENTAL PROGRESS
The second secret to success is this: “Success comes through incremental progress.”
When we’re babies, we develop and grow in small “baby steps.” Our initial babbling and gurgling noises slowly transform into words around the end of our first year. “Dada” and “momma” are joined by one word, then another, until six months later a typical baby’s vocabulary reaches fifty words. Little by little, as a young toddler we begin to add words to our vocabulary at a rate of one to three words per month. Our vocabulary continues to build until, as children, we learn new vocabulary at the rate of ten to twenty words every week. Then, over the next twenty-five years, a new word will be learned each day, reaching the point in our middle age where we’ll have a vocabulary of 20,000 to 35,000 words! But, it doesn’t happen all at once.
The same principle holds true everywhere we look. Plants begin as seeds, sprouting a small tendril from an earthy bed. The green shoot becomes a stem, with more leaves and more growth, day by day, growing and showing a promise of the full-grown plant it will be some day. Plants, animals, humans—we all grow and change slowly and in small steps.
Many want success to strike suddenly, like a bolt of lightning! But in reality, real success is more like constructing a building than being struck by lightning. In math class, you first learn that 2 + 2 = 4. Then comes 4 + 4 = 8. Dozens of math facts and concepts later, geometry, algebra and calculus await. Building an understanding of math is a “brick-by-brick” process. The same is true with sports, music and other skills—even building character and maturity. If we are willing to have the patience, perseverance and diligence to accept small steps of progress, we can reach big goals.
God teaches us through His Word to focus on one day at a time, one challenge at a time, one obstacle at a time. Jesus Christ tells us to seek God’s kingdom and focus on today, “for tomorrow will worry about its own things” (Matthew 6:33–34). If we can be content and thankful for small daily improvements, we will be on the road to big success.
CONSISTENT WORK + INCREMENTAL PROGRESS = SUCCESS
Perhaps the goal of some of your friends is to have an easy job, with little work and big pay. Little do they know that they’re in for a rude awakening! Success in life follows a pattern that God stamped on our creation from the beginning. He worked, and He continues to work (cf. John 5:17). He worked to build His creation, and He’s working to build us. If we are willing to apply ourselves to consistent and wholehearted work, and thankfully accept each degree of improvement, we’ll taste success in our life.
Article Appeared @http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/magazines/2016/september-october/how-to-succeed-at-anything