I forget where I heard it, but someone once said, “You can do more in a year than you think you can do, but you can’t do as much in a day as you think you can do.” Another way to think of it is that we tend to be over confident about what we can accomplish in a day but under confident about what we can accomplish in a year.
Or the short version I like to repeat, “Days are smaller, years are bigger.”
Whichever version you prefer, I know it’s accurate for me. I get carried away with my To-Do list for the day and end up only checking off a couple important tasks.
On the flip side, I think back to 2007 when I wrote the first draft of a novel in one month and then read through the entire Bible the next, both right before the end of the year. Extrapolate that out a bit, and I’m pretty sure I could write at least six book drafts in one year.
That’s insane. Around New Years when everyone’s making resolutions, if I were planning to write a book, it would seem like a huge goal to finish one… but I’d no doubt assume I could write more words per day than I could actually write.
It’s one of those psychological barriers. Even when I’m conscious of it, I have a tough time beating it. Still, it’s a good thing to keep in mind: “Days are smaller, years are bigger. Days are smaller, years are bigger.”
Focus on just one big thing each day, but fill out each year. Because days are smaller than you think but years are bigger.
