The Importance Of Incremental Accumulation
I want to activate your interest in something that is all around you, something that can work for or against you, something that can deliver you unlimited wealth success and happiness. I am talking about “incremental accumulation”, and once you learn about incremental accumulation you will be the master of your world and everything within it.
While you may understand these words separately, do you have any idea of their aggregated power? Together they form an idea that is a universal law, that is at the very heart of our evolution and existence.
Incremental accumulation is “the gradual collection and retention of something”. In the case of our evolution it is our use and access to the evolved DNA markers, instincts, attributes, knowledge, habits, spiritual and creative abilities and numerous other qualities of our ancestors going back to the beginning of time.
Examples of “Incremental Accumulation” are everywhere, here are a few examples that may help you understand what it looks like and how to recognise other forms.
Consider the slow buildup of carbon in your car engine such that it slowly clogs the engine and eventually undermines the engines performance, nicotine in your lungs, the consequence of your Kiwi Saver contribution throughout your life, the daily practice of acquiring knowledge, or the practice of regular exercise.
From this short list of example’s you can see that a habit is formed regardless of whether the thing you are accumulating is good or bad for you, a help or a hindrance.
There appears to be a trigger that allows us to repeat something we already do, far easier than taking on a new behavior. The key to managing this, to your benefit, is to learn how to change your current behavior and habits into something that works better for you.
I can help with many suggestions on how to change your behaviour but one of my favorites is “replacement”. Identify a new incremental behaviour that will serve you using this to replace a behaviour that doesn’t. Make a commitment to repeat it daily for four weeks, which you will increase the intensity of the new, desired habit while further reducing the intensity of the undesired habit. Recommit for another four weeks and then again, after which time your new habit will be secure, the old habit gone.
It is important that you do this with a realisation as to why you want to change and what the benefit to you of this change will be.
The compounding effect of incremental accumulation is where the magic kicks in, let me show you: In New Zealand most children learn to walk, talk and probably count before the age of 5, using that as the foundation to learn more. Their ability to talk allows them to access more information by asking questions, their ability to walk allows them to access a larger world to see, hear and be part of more diverse things that they ask further questions about, their ability to count allowing them to learn to calculate, make music, and use time. The new things they learn continue to grow for as long as they maintain their desire and seek to learn more.
A young woman that opens a Kiwi Saver scheme at 20 years old with $1000, Sally earns $18 per hour and her employer’s compulsory contribution is currently 3% ($100) per month. If Sally never received a pay increase and stayed with her employer all her working life until 60 her employer will have contributed $48,000 to her Kiwi Saver account. The balance will in fact be approximately $152,000 due to the effect of compounding interest.
In summary, incremental accumulation works best for you when you have a vision and are prepared to invest a little bit of today’s time, effort or earnings into something that will benefit you in the longer term.
The ability to translate a vision of something in the future into a goal and then commit small increments of resource regularly, shows that success on a monumental scale is available to everyone that can set goals, do the work and stay on track.