Methods have compounding interest.

You can maybe think of this like investing in the stock market.

Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it… he who doesn’t… pays it.

Albert Einstein

I left school ten years ago at 16. Every year I try to put 10% more effort into pursuing the things I love. I do this because it feels doable, and it feels calming. Oh, and there’s lovely compounding interest in pursuing the things you love.

To simplify this, imagine you’re going to put 10% more effort into doing things you love every year, and in the first year, you do ten things you love. In year two, you’ll do 11. By year ten, you’ll do 26 things you love—that’s a total of 136 things, compared to 100 if you’d simply stuck to 10 things each year.

That 10% extra yearly effort resulted in a 36% higher outcome after ten years.

It’s strangely reassuring and mindblowing how such little extra effort each year can lead to such incredible rewards down the line. I think of my friend who’s a Chief Officer on the Celebrity Apex Cruise Ship at 26, and how she always put that extra 10% in every year at school.

And it’ll keep compounding, in ten more years, she’ll have done 150% total more things she loves than if she had never put that 10% in.

I say this as a way to calmly reassure you to not put pressure on yourself, and remind you that small efforts pay off big long term. And I’m also not talking about working harder, I’m only talking about adjusting your efforts away from things you don’t love, towards the things you do.

Pursuing things you love has a compounding interest because every year that you pursue the things you love, the easier they become. More doors open, you meet more people, your talent improves, and you learn how to get the things you want for less. Plus, you get better at recognizing the things you enjoy.