The Fallacy of Sprints
We’ve been taught to value speed. Society loves quick wins and bursts of achievement. We’re addicted to sprints. But anyone who has sustained a career, built a lasting relationship, or faced life's ups and downs knows that sprinting doesn’t scale. Life isn’t a series of sprints; it’s a marathon with no clear finish line. True progress comes from consistent, steady effort over time.
When you treat work or personal growth as a series of sprints, you’re always trying to peak, pushing to outdo yourself again and again. But that pace can’t last. Sprints give quick highs but are often followed by lows. For example, many people take on a gym membership in January with intense effort, but by February, they aren't around anymore. The initial enthusiasm fades, and they end up feeling discouraged. Marathons, on the other hand, are about sustaining a pace and continuing even when it’s not glamorous.
Sprints promise quick returns and visible results. We live in a world of rapid feedback and highlight reels. The sprint fits neatly into this, giving us immediate gratification. But here’s the catch: sprints consume our energy and erode our patience, making everything feel like a contest where speed is all that matters. The unrealistic expectations they create often lead to disappointment and burnout.
Consider the simple habit of daily cleaning. If you clean your house a little each day and put things back where they belong, the house stays cleaner and you stay saner. This daily effort prevents things from spiraling out of control and eliminates the need for an exhausting deep clean when things become unbearable. It’s far easier to maintain order than to repeatedly let chaos build up and then try to fix it all at once.
Another example is managing your email inbox. If you let emails pile up day after day, the task of sorting through them becomes so overwhelming that you avoid it altogether. This backlog makes it harder to find important information, and the idea of tackling hundreds of unread emails becomes daunting. On the other hand, dealing with emails a little each day—replying, deleting, or archiving as needed—keeps everything manageable and prevents the stress of a massive cleanup later.
The Power of Habits
When progress becomes a habit, everything changes. If you run a little every day, write each morning, or improve your skills incrementally, you’re no longer relying on one grand effort. It’s just what you do. Over time, you become a person who runs or writes every day. This identity is easy to maintain because it’s just part of who you are. The effort is steady, and progress is about maintaining a rhythm, not chasing dramatic peaks. This is the power of a marathon mindset.
Sprints are like sugar—quick energy, a temporary boost, but not sustainable. True growth requires a slow burn, a commitment to showing up every day without expecting immediate rewards.
Systems Over Goals
Goals aren’t bad, but they can be limiting. They push us to sprint toward a finish line, then rest. Systems, on the other hand, focus on creating a process that leads to continuous improvement.
When you adopt a marathon mindset, you focus on the path, not just the finish line. If your goal is to write a bestselling book, each day you don’t reach it feels like failure. But if your system is to write one page every day, success is simply showing up and engaging in the process. Success comes from steady, consistent action.
James Clear, in Atomic Habits, argues that success isn’t about achieving one big goal but about sticking to an effective system. By focusing on small, consistent actions, you build momentum and create a lifestyle that eventually leads to your goals. Many of the biggest achievements in life are incremental. They don’t come from grand gestures but from small, consistent actions that compound over time.
Think of Warren Buffett. He didn’t build his empire through quick wins; he built it slowly, over decades, using the power of compounding. Most traders chase short-term highs, believing they can beat the market by making quick decisions. However, studies consistently show that the majority of traders fail to outperform simple investment strategies like dollar-cost averaging (DCA) into an S&P 500 index fund. The traders who chase quick returns often end up losing money, while those who remain patient and invest consistently over time are more likely to see solid, long-term growth.