Tag: small things

One thing can lead to so much

Posted on by philipdodson

I tell this to myself most days, now…’just keep going, Philip’.

Patience, that’s something I have not had a huge amount of in life until more recent years. I used to think that impatience was good, some macho hustle, before my mate Gary Vaynerchuk made it popular. Acting on impulse and getting things done is one thing and a good thing, but not being patient enough to keep going, to gain the learning, to adapt, to test is a bad thing.

I’ve increasingly realised, it is just that, keep going with things, modify, adapt, learn, but most of all be patient, great things come over time not immediately. They build by small, unnoticeable steps, so momentum builds and builds, but always slow at first, but then the momentum grows and grows like a hockey stick curve.

Especially when you feel shit, this is when it matters most. On good days, we can all fly along, on tough days we feel like we’re wading through treacle with lead boats on. We all have shit days.Then on those days, try saying ‘just keep going, Philip’. It’s more like ‘I fancy watching Netflix’.

There are times when you will doubt this, I do many times, but I always remind myself, when I’m thinking of giving up and not doing something, that doing just one small thing to keep the momentum going is better than not. Often, you do that one thing and I try to make it small, you feel good, well better, and you do a second and third thing. Previously, I could write days off, weeks off, even years, through not keeping going, through thinking about the big stuff and giving in and looking for the path of least resistance.

I painfully learnt and realised that one thing might just be the thing you have been waiting for to go forward, we never know and that is why I have learnt to just keep going. Publishing one more blog, writing one more journal entry, doing one more piece of art, whatever it is.

One thing can lead to so much.

Finely balanced ecosystems 

Posted on by philipdodson


I watched a video yesterday about the amazing effects that had occurred due to the re-introduction of wolves to Yellowstone National Park. How, not having wolves there for so long had led to a complete imbalance that was destroying vegetation due to no predators for the deer, which in turn meant less trees, less birds, less beavers and so on.

Within 6 years of their re-introduction there were quiet stunning effects, the deer stayed out of certain areas so that the habitation came back in everything.

As humans we do not realise our impact that our decisions have on the natural habitat that we are a part of and this is a great success story, but there are many more disastourous stories.

The interesting thing too, we have our own ecosystems and we are even less tuned into them than the natural ones, well maybe the same, as few are tuned into the natural ones either.

So, cuting back on sleep, or starting eating something new, or changing exercise or a whole variety of different things can seem tiny or of little importance, but over time they will lead to much bigger changes.

Just one extra biscuit a day could lead to diabetes in 5 years, walking less each week could lead to obesity in a few years and so on. 

We have an ecosystem that needs respecting and finely balancing.

Life is made up of small things that amount to giant leaps over time. However, smaller things are harder to spot and easier not to focus on.