“An apple a day keeps the doctor away.”  16th century nursery rhyme

If an apple a day would keep the doctor away, why don’t you eat an apple every day?

But you, Timothy, belong to God; so run from all these evil things, and follow what is right and good. Pursue a godly life, along with faith, love, perseverance, and gentleness.  (1Tim. 6:11; NLT)

Monday’s DG, “Do the Easy-To-Do Things” generated quite a bit of positive response.  Because it seemed to strike a responsive chord, I’ve elected to push it a little further today and talk about some other ramifications of the notion that the consistent performance of the simple, easy-to-do things is the key to successful goal achievement.  Remember on Monday how I used the exercise bicycle example?  Here are a few more to think about.

It would certainly be easy to eat an apple a day.  If there is any truth to that old nursery rhyme, why don’t we do it?  Probably because it’s so easy not to do.  And when we don’t eat that apple, we don’t suffer any immediate consequences.  Therefore, we too easily conclude (maybe erroneously?) that’s it’s just a dumb old nursery rhyme anyway.  After all…where’s the proof?  You know, where’s the double-blind, placebo study performed by Big Pharma and endorsed by our ever-vigilant  FDA.  (Don’t forget to look at the Link of the Day today.)

How about reading the Bible through in a year.  Based on the number of people who tackle that goal, it must be a pretty formidable task, right?  Actually it’s pretty easy.  I’ve done it a number of times.  All it takes is the discipline to read between 15-20 minutes every day for the year and, voila, you’ve done it!  Believe me, there are days, especially when wading through some of those Old Testament books like Leviticus and Numbers, when it’s pretty easy not to do.  But persevere, and the goal is accomplished.

Along those same lines, what if you read just 10 pages of a good, life-changing book every day with out fail?  How long would 10 pages a day take?  Not very long.  Remember, how you feed your mind is just as important to how you feed your body.  Let’s see…10 pages a day for a year adds up to 3,650 pages.  That’s a couple dozen books!  Now if the books you chose to read were filled with life-transforming material, don’t you think you would be changed?

What if on that drive to and from work every day, you listened to a CD or an mp3 file on a topic you wanted to learn or assimilate.  Would that be more profitable and productive than listening to the same old music or news on the radio?  Believe me, if any thing important is happening, you’ll hear about it when you get to work anyway.  So why not spend your drive time feeding your mind with good stuff?  How many CD’s do you think you would have listened to in the space of a year?  Wouldn’t take too many years before you had the equivalent of a college degree.

Can you see how the same principle applies to so many other things?  What if you wanted to write a book?  Could you spare just 30 minutes a day…without fail?  Maybe get up 30 minutes earlier?  How far along would you be just one short year later?  Maybe the better question would be how many books would you have written at the end of that year?  What if it was emptying all your loose change into a jar every night?  Would you miss the money you’re accumulating?  What if it was to put $10 or $50 or $100 in the bank every week to save toward all those Christmas presents that are put on credit cards every year?  Remember the old Christmas clubs the banks used to offer?  Whoops, I’m dating myself again.

The lesson in all this is that a little bit adds up to a whole lot when consistently applied for an extended period of time.  It’s absolutely amazing.  Remember Monday’s Pearl of Wisdom, “Do the thing and you shall have the power.”

Prayer Power
Lord, how easy it is to get distracted from the main things in our lives.  Help us learn the value of perseverance and consistency.  Give each of our readers a vision of an uncommon way they could apply this principle in their own lives.

 Link of the Day
Reasons Why An Apple A Day Really Keeps the Doctor Away

Blessings on you as you begin to consistentyl “nibble” away at that goal you’ve always wanted to accomplish.