How much do you want to make a big change in your life? Most of us want something. Lose weight, eat healthy, get a better job, get out of debt… Generally speaking this kind of drastic change does not happen overnight. It takes planning, motivation, and work. Making small changes and steps toward getting to that goal.

About ten years ago I decided I wanted to get in shape. I was way overweight and was having heart problems. So I did what any sane person would do. I ordered P90X. I knew having a gym membership would do nothing for me. I would look for excuses not to go and it would just be a waste of money. I had seen the infomercials for P90X and figured I would give it a try. The first week was insane. I was in so much pain. I couldn’t lift my arms after the first few days so my wife had to help me get dressed. But I didn’t give up. I pushed passed the pain and kept at it.

During the first week or two I could not do more than maybe one sit up and 0 pull ups. My starting weight was about 255 pounds. But I kept working at it. Every day I would put on the video and work at it. After the first month I took a picture and could see a change. I started to also work out during my lunch hour at work, using an elliptical machine since I could barely get 1/10 of a mile on the treadmill before I felt like dying. That’s when I really started to make big changes. Doing both exercises I started dropping 5 pounds per week. I could start seeing muscle tone. I kept at it and I was eating healthier as well since now I cared about my health. I eventually was able to transition to the treadmill and would jog 5 miles per day during my lunch hour. My work office had a small work out area in the basement which made it convenient.

After about 9 months to a year of doing it every day except Sunday, I had dropped almost 100 pounds. I got to my lowest weight of 167 pounds. I had ripped abs and back and I felt awesome. I was 32 years old and in the best shape of my life. I kept doing it for about another year before I went back to school and no longer had time to keep at it so much.

The point of all that was to show that small decisions and small steps lead to big changes. Had I initially had the goal to lose 100 pounds or get ripped abs I would have said “no way!” But just working toward the small goal of doing a daily workout and then eating healthier, then adding jogging as a second workout, all of these things added up to a drastic change for me.

Anything in life that you want to get better at or make improvements to takes commitment. But it doesn’t take a lot to get started. Just making minor changes, small steps that lead to a big goal. You may not even know what the goal is when you start but you will eventually figure it out along the way and the goal may change over time.

Almost exactly 3 years ago I started with an interest in real estate investing. I didn’t think it was possible. I had $50k in debt and no savings, no knowledge or experience to make it happen. But I took one small step to attend a local seminar on the subject. It of course was a sales pitch to buy the very expensive training program from them, which I didn’t buy. But at that meeting I met someone who introduced me to BiggerPockets and then I really got involved. Once I perused the website a bit I liked it. I listened to a webinar and I liked that too.

I work from home and usually always had music playing all day while I worked. I even usually had done this while working at the office as well. Once I discovered BiggerPockets and became a member there I began to listen to their podcasts. I went back to the archives and listened to all of them, usually would get through 3-5 per day. Then did the same with their webinars. With all that, I got motivated to read more and learned more. I normally hate reading but I was so interested in this topic that I devoured books about it. In one of the webinars was a 90 day challenge to buy your first or next property. That was in Jan 2017. I took that challenge and by March had found my first property. We didn’t close on it until June that year but that got us started. I’ve talked about how I did that in detail in a previous post.

Those podcasts led me to listen to other podcasts such as ChooseFI and the MadFIentist and others. All of those things then led me to be more involved on BiggerPockets and to get another property and network with great people which helped me get other properties with no money down and I continue to grow exponentially. I went from a negative net worth to almost ¾ of a Million net worth in just 2 years. All because of taking small steps in the right direction.

I know that if I was able to do those things you can too. You must believe in yourself and take action. Decide what you want to do or where you want to be and start taking small steps to get there. If your goal is to get out of debt. Take the first step to track your expenses. Then start cutting out what you don’t need. Choose the snowball method to pay off your debts and get motivated to continue working on that. Find ways to increase your income with side hustles that can be used to pay down debt faster.

There is no one way to get things done. Find what works best for you and get to work. Anything truly is possible. But nothing will happen if you choose to do nothing.

Here is a link to a great YouTube video illustrating the difference small daily choices can make over time. Enjoy!