There’s a great quote on a Pieology wall I visited: “Judge each day not by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant” — Robert Louis Stevenson.

How easy it for us to simply look at the day, week, or year and say “What did I get out of it?” I think this can lead to two dangerous habit patterns.

First is that we rush to get things done instead of sowing for the future. It is the case that many meaningful things require sacrifice and hard work to be achieved. And that means there are many days where very minimal, and sometimes even backwards, progress is made.

For example, the times I’d try to start an exercise routine and fail, I’d keep wondering what I achieved today. How many reps I got and how much I’m growing. Of course, the pacing of getting fit is slow, and it wasn’t long before I’d stop because it seemed I wasn’t getting much out of it.

It was only when I decided I’d think about how each day would set me up for a lifestyle of fitness that I was able to stick to it. I got the trajectory right, and the destination followed.

The second point is that we think we are doing things fine when we are slowly getting off course.

There have been times where its been tough to go to the gym. Tough enough that I’d end up compromising on busy days by doing small workouts at home. In my eyes, I’m already pretty fit, and it’s just a way to keep something up. That is, I felt like I had already harvest what I needed, so not much effort was needed.

But when I didn’t have the excuses anymore, I found it difficult to go back to the gym to spur growth. And when I did, I wasn’t putting in my full effort My incremental behaviour slowly became a pattern that I found hard to give up. I put myself on a differing trajectory without noticing, and paid the price.

We have to be watchful of concluding the harvest measures the success of our day. A much better indicator is what we put into it. Because that signifies the trajectory we are on, which is magnitudes more important.