The Small Choices That Quietly Build Your Life [Raw Session]

00:00 — Sleeping in was a different choice

Hey, welcome back to Slow Builds.

So this morning I did something that normally I probably would have said was the wrong decision. I slept in. Not really slept in, because I was awake, but normally I get up early, come downstairs, work out, get some things done, and start my day.

I've talked before about doing little things for the future self, and getting my workout done early is a good example of that for me. Morning me does something that nighttime me probably isn't going to want to do. If I leave the workout until six or seven o'clock, now I've worked all day, we've probably eaten supper, maybe we're watching something, and suddenly I have to convince myself to come downstairs and do it.

So normally, most days I give up that lazy morning and get it done. But this morning my wife was still sleeping, and lately I've been trying to spend more time at home and get some of that normal time together back that I think we lost a little over the years.

So I stayed there. We slept a little longer and woke up together. And then I went downstairs and did my workout, where this video idea actually came from. I didn't write the script. I talked to AI between sets and helped it flesh it out with me.

So the workout still happened. I just made a different choice on when I did it, and I let myself relax a little more and build that connection back.

01:41 — Sacrificing something or building something?

And it got me thinking about those little choices I've always called sacrifices. You sacrifice something now because you want something later. But I'm starting to think sacrifice might be the wrong way to look at it, because sacrifice puts all the attention on what you're losing.

Maybe those little choices are actually more about what you're building. And that's the way my mind has been trying to focus on these things.

02:06 — Noticing my own part in the pattern

Before any of that can happen, though, you have to notice that something needs to change. That's probably the hardest part. You have to pay attention to yourself, and sometimes that means listening to things you don't really want to hear.

If one person has a problem with something I'm doing, maybe they're wrong. But if I keep hearing the same thing from different people, or the same problem keeps showing up in different parts of my life, eventually I probably have to stop and ask whether I'm contributing to it. Maybe I'm doing something wrong. Maybe the way I'm acting keeps helping create the same outcome.

That's very uncomfortable, because it's much easier to think about what everyone else could change. You want someone to treat you differently. You want your relationship to feel different. You want things at work to improve. You want your health and you want your finances to change. But if you keep doing exactly what you've always done, it's hard to expect everything around you to suddenly become different.

At some point something has to move, and the part I have the most control over is myself. That doesn't mean every problem is your fault. Sometimes another person really is the problem. Sometimes circumstances are outside your control. But I still have to decide what I'm going to do with that.

That's where these little changes and choices start. You notice something. You decide you don't want to keep going that way. Then you start behaving a little bit differently.

03:33 — Small decisions become normal behavior

Most changes don't happen because of one giant decision. Usually they're made up of things that barely seem important while you're doing them.

Maybe you eat differently that afternoon because supper matters more to you. Maybe you leave something in the store because you don't really need it. You finish something at work instead of pushing it till tomorrow. You go for a walk. You put some money away. You spend some time with someone instead of doing whatever else you would have done.

None of that looks particularly impressive, and most of the time nobody even knows you did it. There's an idea in Atomic Habits that fits very well here: your habits aren't only about producing an outcome. They're also shaping the kind of person you're becoming.

I like that way of looking at it because it takes some of the pressure off needing immediate results. One workout doesn't make me fit. Saving a hundred dollars doesn't make me financially independent. Staying home one day doesn't repair years where maybe I wasn't around as much as I should have been.

But they're pieces. They're bricks. And eventually enough of those decisions start becoming your normal behavior. That's when you notice yourself. Something that used to require effort is suddenly just what you do now.

04:47 — Choosing to work from home

One of the big examples for me lately is staying home to work. For years I would go work at my friend's house. And many other years I was on the road and not even in the same country, province, or whatever.

And I did like that. At my friend's house I have my own office. I have my own routines. On the road I had new offices, new experiences, new contracts, new places to explore.

At my friend's house, I'd always have someone to talk to, someone I work with. And there was a social side to it that I enjoyed. So right now, me staying home is me giving that up. I'm giving up that socializing with a coworker and a friend. I'm giving up someone I can bounce ideas off with and go to lunch with and reminisce about the past times. Just friendship, basically. I still have that. We still have it. We just don't have it on a daily basis.

So staying home actually did mean I have to give something up, and that's an important distinction too. Sometimes change isn't choosing between something good and something bad. Sometimes it's choosing between two things you like and deciding which one matters more right now.

I traveled a lot over the years. And then even when I wasn't traveling, I was often leaving the house to work at my friend's house, because he didn't always travel with me, but I still had my office. It was a comfort and convenience.

Eventually I started noticing how much time that actually added up to. I could see some strain there. Not some huge dramatic thing where one day everything fell apart. It was more that I started noticing the time I wasn't home.

So lately I've been staying home more, and one decision gave me quite a bit back. There's no commute, so I get that time back. I'm buying less gas, putting less wear on my vehicle. But the bigger thing is I'm just here. If one of my kids comes through the house, I'm around. I'm around my wife. I can cook supper. There are random conversations and little things that happen during the day that I used to completely miss because I simply wasn't physically there.

You can't really schedule that stuff. You can't put random conversations with your children into a calendar for 2:17 today. You just have to be around when it happens.

So yes, I'm giving up some of the routine and social part I had at my friend's and coworker's house. But when I look at what I'm getting back, I don't really see it as a sacrifice anymore. I'm building something.

And this morning was part of that too. For where I am right now, staying there and waking up [unclear] might have been the better brick to put down in that wall right now. And I honestly believe it is.

07:46 — Choosing what I want to enjoy

Food is another place where this shows up for me. I've tracked calories. I've been really strict. I've paid attention to my weight, my workouts. But I don't want every meal for the rest of my life to become a math problem.

So a lot of it now comes down to choosing what I actually care about. Maybe there's a protein bar there, and I eat half instead of the whole thing. Maybe there are chips around, and I have a couple. Or lately, I haven't been eating any of them. Not because chips are bad—they are bad—or because I'm punishing myself.

Maybe I just know we're having a bigger supper later, and that's the thing I actually want to enjoy. I want to be able to have more on my dinner plate and enjoy it and not think about it, than have some unneeded snacks and then worry about how much is on my dinner plate.

I don't have to sit there thinking about blowing my diet because earlier I had that bag of chips, or had that bar, or had that hot chocolate, or whatever it might have been. That works better for me than constantly being either perfectly on track or completely off track.

I'm not giving everything up. I'm deciding which things matter more. And if you repeat those little decisions enough, obviously they start affecting how much you eat, your weight, how you feel, and how easy it is to maintain everything without constantly thinking about it all the time.

09:09 — Money and room to breathe

Money might be the easiest place to see this. There are so many things that give you an immediate reward: eating out, buying another shirt or something else you like but don't really need, upgrading something just because the better version exists. And then there's that whole idea of, "I deserve it."

I don't really like that argument. Not because you don't deserve things. You probably do. We all deserve a break. But deserving something and deciding that spending money on it improves your life aren't necessarily the same thing.

Say eating out costs a hundred dollars. If we're going somewhere for a special occasion, or if it's something we're all going to enjoy together, that's different. I'll spend money on things that matter to me. I'll spend money on the experience. But maybe this month it's just eating out because that's what I normally do.

What happens if I don't? That hundred dollars stays with me. Maybe I invest it. One hundred dollars isn't going to change my life. That's not really what matters. I built the habit of having money left over instead of automatically finding somewhere to put it and spend it. Then that happens again, and over enough time something that looked tiny doesn't stay tiny.

That's an idea in The Psychology of Money that fits this really well too. A lot of financial progress is invisible. People can see the car you bought. They can't see the car you decided not to buy. [Unclear] sees the restaurant you skipped, the clothes you left in the store, or the money that quietly went into an account.

A lot of decisions that build financial security are pretty boring from the outside. But eventually that money gives you something much more valuable than the item would have ever given you. It gives you choices. It gives you time. It gives you [unclear] some room to breathe.

10:55 — Doing work people can trust

And work is another version of this. I'm not talking about working yourself into the ground or into the grave, or giving a company your entire life because you think somebody is eventually going to notice. That's not what I mean.

It's more about being willing to put in a little extra effort when it actually matters. Maybe you're about to go for coffee, but you're five minutes away from finishing something, so you finish it. A project needs an extra hour that week, and you put it in. There are support tickets there, and you take another one even though you've already filled your quota.

A client asks you something. Instead of replying as quickly as possible, you take the time to understand what they're actually trying to accomplish. Or you read the entire email chain, because the answer probably isn't just in the last message.

None of these things should consume your life, and none of them guarantee you anything at all either. You can work hard and still get overlooked. Companies lay people off. Managers make bad decisions. AI is changing jobs, and no one knows exactly where all this is going.

But we're still building something. Over time people learn whether you're reliable. They know if you follow something through. They learn whether you're someone who tends to disappear once things get hard, or somebody who stays around long enough to help figure it out.

Then a special project comes up. Someone needs a person they trust with a client. A review happens. A promotion opens. Those little things can matter in those moments. And even if the company itself never rewards you for it, the skills don't disappear. Neither does the experience. Neither do the relationships you've built with the people you've worked with. That's still yours.

A career isn't built because you stayed late on Tuesday. It's built over years, becoming more useful, more capable, and more dependable.

12:43 — The ordinary things that add up

Once I started thinking about this, I realized there are examples everywhere. Learning is one. Half an hour scrolling on your phone isn't a disaster. I still waste plenty of time on my phone. But sometimes that half hour can be twenty pages of a book. Do that enough times, and eventually you've read a lot of books.

The same idea applies around the house. Fix the little thing while it's still a little thing, instead of waiting until it turned into an expensive thing. Make the appointment you've been putting off. Deal with the paperwork when it's ten minutes instead of allowing it to become a pile that takes an entire afternoon. For me, it takes a weekend sometimes.

Relationships probably have more examples than anything else. Sometimes it's putting your phone down because someone's talking. I don't like having my phone out when we eat out. I hate when people have their phone. We're all sitting around or eating out. We should be together. It should be people.

Sometimes you go somewhere with your wife even though staying home would be easier. You call someone. You stay for another coffee. Or in my case lately, maybe you skip that coffee because being home is what needs more attention. And that's where I think this becomes personal.

13:53 — What am I trying to build?

There's no universal list telling everyone which little thing they should give up. Sometimes getting up early is the right decision. Sometimes sleeping in is. Sometimes work needs an extra hour. Sometimes the better decision is closing the laptop. Saving money is important for all of us, but there are also things worth spending money on.

The important question probably isn't, "What should I sacrifice?" It's, "What am I trying to build?" Once I know that, the little choices start to make more sense.

That's why I don't really want to call these sacrifices anymore. Sacrifices make me focus on what I'm losing. I didn't eat something or buy something or go somewhere. I gave up some time. If that's the way I look at it, eventually life starts sounding like this miserable process where I'm constantly denying myself things and hoping someday I get a reward for it. That's not what I want.

I'd rather pay attention to what those choices are adding. Staying home more is helping me build something with my family. Changing the way I eat helps me stay healthy without having food take over my life. Putting money away gives me a future with more options. Doing good work builds skill and trust. Reading books builds knowledge.

15:05 — One imperfect brick doesn't erase the wall

And none of this has to happen perfectly. That's another reason I like the idea of bricks. If you're building a wall and one brick isn't perfect, the whole wall doesn't disappear. You put the next one down.

You eat too much one day? Fine. You spend money you probably shouldn't have. You miss the workout. You waste an afternoon. You have a bad week at work. None of those erase everything you've already built. You just continue.

And eventually I think you hit that point I've talked about before where you notice yourself. You realize the thing that used to require effort has become normal. Maybe there's money sitting there that wouldn't have been there before. You're stronger. Your relationship feels different. People trust you more. Your house feels a little different. You feel different.

There probably wasn't one specific day where any of that happened. It was built through all these little decisions that almost no one else was paying attention to.

That's what I'm trying to get better at. Not making huge sacrifices. Not optimizing every second of my life. Just paying more attention to what I'm building. Because the thing I give up right now might only matter for ten minutes. What I'm building from that decision might still matter ten years from now.

And sometimes the brick is getting up early and doing the workout. Sometimes that brick is staying in bed with your wife for another hour. This morning, that's the one I picked, and the workout still got done.

So thanks for watching. Hope you liked it. Bye.