Major events are rarely the forces that direct our lives toward success or away from it. What really makes the difference is the little things that we choose to do, or not do, on a daily basis. Developing the habit of making good daily choices can take you to success regardless of where you are now.

A simple example that clearly illustrates this is the problem of being overweight. America now has the fattest adult population in the world and the second fattest children, behind Australia. But how do people get so fat, after all when they are born they only weigh a few pounds?

Nobody can get fat in one catastrophic event. In order to develop a weight problem you have to consistently eat the wrong foods or too much food day in and day out for months or years. The person who goes from a healthy weight at birth to 50 pounds (23 kgs) over weight by age 20 has put on excess fat at the average rate of only one tenth of an ounce (3 gms) per day.

That same 20 year old could be in perfect physical shape by age 25 by just losing an average of less than half an ounce per day, yet most people who are 50 pounds overweight today will still be 50 pounds (or more) overweight in five years time.

The person who is overweight has a habit of making a few simple bad choices and repeating them day in and day out. They could just as easily make a few simple good choices and repeat those day in and day out. There is no real mystery to it yet people spend huge amounts of money on the latest fad gimmick that claims ridiculously fast weight loss.

For some reason human beings seem to believe that success has to happen almost instantly or it will never happen. The result of this erroneous belief is that most of us are looking for the miracle cure for our problems or the magic wand for our successes.

The truth is that almost all success and almost all failure happen gradually. Just like in our weight problem example it is the simple habits that we have that make all the difference and these habits are very easy to change if we exercise a little patience.

It only takes around seven and one half minutes per day at the average adult reading speed to read 10 typical length self improvement books per year, yet most people don't even read one self help book per year. It's not that it's hard to improve your life it's just that most people don't bother to do it.

Imagine what you could achieve in a couple of years just by reallocating one hour of television time per day and using it to take some goal directed action instead. That's equivalent to ten average full time working weeks per year being devoted to achieving your goals.

It doesn't really take much to make a huge difference in your outcomes if you consistently spend a little, wisely applied, time each and every day and have the patience to stick at it.

You don't need to spend years looking for the miracle cure or the magic wand because the ability to change your life for the better is already in your hands today.