The Genius of the Every Day

Everything depends on the daily.

Character is built with it. With the drop-drop-drop of daily deposits of integrity; of choosing what we want most over what we want now; with placing the genuinely important above the exigent.

Certainly our skills depend on it. We become great at something by first being ordinary but interested, and slowly becoming proficient, and perhaps even one day finding we have developed mastery.

Our relationships, too, or their decline, hinge on the million small choices we make day after day after day. When we are tired, when we are tempted, when we are tense.

Yet the daily feels so very insignificant. It is just this moment, this instant – small, disposable, forgettable. Except that it is the beginning – or end – of everything.

I embarked on a writing experiment once, a number of years ago. I decided I would write and publish a blog post every single day. So that’s what I did, for about half a year. The effects were quite convincing.

You would assume that there would be some improvement in technique, simply by virtue of practice, but what surprised me was how much it helped create a flow. Ideas came more easily, and in greater number and variety. I was technically investing more work, but it felt a lot easier. I was feeding a daily rhythm, and it was rewarding me by developing its own momentum.

I know a number of artist friends who have done a ‘100 days of creativity’ style challenge with their work, and it’s been wonderful to see such an outpouring of their skills and talents.

Yet looking at some of their wonderful work appear in my social media feeds, I wondered why we couldn’t take the same approach with any other aspect of our lives we want to inject with new life, new flow, new momentum. To seize on the genius of the daily, and direct it towards other facets of our heads, hearts and hands. To recognise the power of our routines, and how they might need to be adjusted.

What if, in a relationship we wanted to deliberately nurture, we chose to make 7 or 14 or 30 or even 100 daily investments of care, encouragement or generosity? Imagine – every day for a month, a conscious commitment to consider how we could make a particular person feel more appreciated?

What if we chose every day for 100 days to explore a single topic that has some importance and significance for our life and the things we believe matter most? What might that yield?

What if we chose, every day for a month, to develop our character by saying no to whatever that thing is that you say yes to more than you know you should?

What might these kind of days add up to? Would they start to shape a more deliberate life? One that looks more like the kind of life you most want to craft?

 

What is one area of your life you would like to create more momentum in? Where do you want to feed a greater flow? What is one daily practice you could commit to, and for how long?