We Live In a Bubble Of Quick Wins. Here's Why To Ditch That

Hey everyone,  

This week I wanted to write about how we all fall into the bubble of quick wins - let it be about getting into shape or making a lot of money. These quick wins usually don't work in the long run, and in the following piece, I will talk about the advantage of slow & steady habit-building.

For example, consistently bringing a new piece to you every Wednesday. (almost every Wednesday)

So enjoy the following article with a reading time of 4 minutes.

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We, humans, are all seeking instant gratification. We want satisfaction & wins fast. Hence we spend so much time on social media, YouTube, or the news.

With these quick wins, we often fail to realize that they take more than what they provide.

When trying to lose weight, we try different diets promising quick results. We want to fix the issues of years of unhealthy habits in weeks.

The same applies to money. People want to get rich quickly. They took advantage of the "everything bubble" through shitcoins, NFTs, short squeeze stocks (aka the Gamestop saga), and SPACs.

Through these bubbles, people were keen to religiously follow trends that promised 10x-100x return on their initial investment.

These things might work. For a while.

Yes, you can indeed lose significant weight with a jungalunga diet. In a month, you will feel better as you see fewer kilos on the scale and a slimmer body.

Although to achieve that, you had to change your eating habits drastically and most certainly quit fruits/bread/potatoes/tomato/fat/anything the "fitness gurus" tell you.

However, at one point, you will finish your diet and unconsciously return to your former eating habits. Some months or a year go by, and you will be in the same painful position as you were before you started that jungalunga diet.

Back at Level 0.

Same with those bubble investments.

You might have had some great wins with Gamestop stock. Perhaps you realize 20x profit with the money you invested in. Then you withdrew and started searching for another quick win - so you found Dogecoin. You invested in that, again achieved another 5-10x, and with the ecstasy you felt, you withdrew your money.

Next, you wanted to go further to enjoy the taste of a quick win - so you found some dodgy MambojamboDAO crypto which promised 50x profit if you stake your money.

So you invested in that mambojambo stuff, all your money you gained, plus your initial investment. Two weeks later, that whole mambojambo crypto crashed. And you lost everything.

Back at Level 0.

Build Your Habits Slow & Steady

I am currently reading James Clear's Atomic Habits book. It provides a framework for making it easier to implement and keep healthy habits and get rid of unhealthy habits more easily.

Through their core messages, the book details how to create an environment that supports healthy habits and makes it more challenging to practice certain unhealthy habits.

A simple example: if you always procrastinate during work by scrolling on Instagram, place your phone more distant from your desk - if you are at home, put it in another room.

The book also highlights the importance of taking things more slowly but consistently. And that's what I wanted to tell you with those examples above.

There is no quick win to most things in life. If you want to get in shape through quick wins, you will never be able to maintain it. The same applies to money - in most cases, if you get a quick win, you won't be able to have such healthy financial habits to keep the money you gained.

It's mainly because our identity differs from the person we want to become.

Even if we do a "quick win" diet, we will fall back if we still identify as regular binge-eater. If our identity includes a habit of overspending, even if we have easily gained money, we will just spend it as always.

That's why we need to take the slower path if we want to improve some aspects of our life. We need to practice "slow living" in that essence as well.

That means that we don't have to change everything within a day. We have to start with small actions.

If you want to eat more healthily, start including more nutritious foods in every meal you eat.

If you want to get in shape, start with a 10-minute walk daily - or a 1-km run. Don't rush it. The sooner you start, the sooner you improve that 1-km run to a 5K and then a 10K.

The key to a better life is not through "quick wins" but consistency.

As James Clear writes in his book, if we improve by just 1% daily, we might not notice the results immediately. Yet, if we keep that 1% improvement daily for a year, you will end up 37 times better in a year.

Have A Long-Term Perspective To Become More Patient

We are so impatient and want quick results because we usually lack a long-term perspective in our lives.

We fail to visualize what we could become in a year or the next five years as we tend to be short-sighted with our life.

Life is indeed short and we have to make the most out of it; however, in this context, we need to practice a vision of long-term perspective to generate more patience.

Even if we are in our 30s, 40s, 50s, or 60s, we still have many great years to live - God willing. If we can accept this perspective, firstly, it helps us to comprehend that if we lay the foundation of slow and steady healthy habit-building, it may last for the rest of our lives.

Secondly, it supports our patience and the value of enjoying the path toward becoming a better self throughout the days, months and years.

Lately, I have been following this "rule" in my everyday life through my personal fitness journey. After years of trying "quick fixes" for my fitness level, I am improving slowly and steadily. This, eventually, led me to complete two Spartan races - among some other achievements.

I also follow the same rule through the pieces I write for this blog. Instead of aiming for perfection, I aim for consistent delivery every week.

Because we shall remember one thing:

"Rome wasn't built in a day."

Máté - TMBNC

💡 My Weekly Recommendations 💡

Some Pieces I Recommend You This Week

• Matt D'Avella is one of my favorite YouTube creators. In his latest video, he argues the advantage of a purposeful "boring" life - that is, obviously, a fascinating and meaningful one. A highlight from the video: "If you're bored with your life, it's not because you're doing the same thing every day but because you're doing the wrong thing every day"

• Isabel wrote a great piece on why modern dating is so hard - with the dominating presence of online dating apps and commitment challenges.

• I recently connected with Elisa Viaud, a fascinating person whose LinkedIn post really got me: she tells her story of a near-death experience that encouraged her to change and live her life fully.

• Something fun: Jack from Young Money wrote a satirical post on LinkedIn on how he "has been eating in hotels for free as a wealth hack". 😂 His post certainly broke LinkedIn.

Newsletters I Read Every Week

• Young Money - Jack writes inspirational & insightful posts on finance, career, and life. I learned a lot from his work, and was also a great motivation for me to start my own newsletter. 10/10 recommended!

• International Intrigue - A valuable newsletter on diplomacy & geopolitics delivered every weekday. Rather read this than all those shitty clickbait articles on mainstream media.

• Exec Sum - A daily newsletter on the major stories from the financial world. It's fun, entertaining, and informative. Better than those finance outlets with shitloads of ads.

• Snail Mail by Slow Growth - a weekly newsletter delivered every Monday by Matt D'Avella's team with great motivational content on productivity. It's not the usual productivity bullshit that you find everywhere else.

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