Life Assets Are Built Over Time: The Everyday Habits That Create Lasting Returns

Preface：

The truly rewarding things in life are often very simple.

Doing 30 minutes of exercise every day, getting enough sleep, reading, learning, keeping a record of one's life, meeting friends, taking a walk in the park occasionally...

These things seem very ordinary, even so ordinary that we tend to overlook them.

However, if you extend the time to five years, ten years or even longer, you will find that a person's health, knowledge, cognition, emotions and interpersonal relationships are often accumulated bit by bit.

Life assets are not suddenly possessed; they are built up gradually through daily lifestyles.

So, I increasingly feel that the so-called "high-return life habits" are not a must-fulfilling self-discipline list.

What is truly important is:
Find the good habits that suit you, incorporate them into your daily life, and let time generate compound interest for you.

What are life assets?

Previously, when we talked about assets, we usually thought of houses, savings, stocks, funds or enterprises.

But as we grow older, I increasingly feel that the assets one truly possesses are far more than these.

• Health is an asset.
• Knowledge is an asset.
• The ability to continuously learn is an asset.
• The ability to manage emotions is an asset.
• The relationship between people is also an asset.
• Even a person's long-term formed living habits themselves are also an asset.
  

These assets have one common feature:
They all require time to accumulate.

You can't get healthy by running just once, nor can you have true cognition by reading just one book.

But doing a little every day, after a few years, they will gradually become a part of you.

The real difficulty with good habits is not knowing, but persisting.

We actually don't lack advice on "good habits".

Do exercise every day, go to bed early and get up early, read, meditate, keep a diary, maintain social interaction, get close to nature...

These principles are known to everyone.

The real difficulty is:
Why, even though we know it's beneficial, do we always fail to stick to it?

I myself have a very obvious experience.

I have persisted in running for many years.

Every morning, after washing up, I put on my running gear and start a 5-kilometer run for the day.

Because it has been incorporated into my daily life, now it doesn't require me to make a decision every day:

It has become a part of my life.

But reading, recording, and reviewing the past are not as easy to persist in.

I know these things are good, but often I think:
"Wait until I have time to do it."

Then it's a few weeks or even months before I do it.

This makes me gradually realize:
Things that can be fixed in the schedule are often easier to persist in than relying solely on willpower.

Don't just rely on self-discipline; turn good habits into schedules.

If you have to go to work at 9 o'clock every morning, we usually don't ask ourselves:
"Do I want to go to work today?"
Because it has become a part of the schedule.

Exercise can also be like this.

• If you want to exercise every day, fix a time.
• If you want to read, set aside a fixed reading time.
• If you want to go to bed early, set a stop-work time.
  

Don't make decisions every day relying on willpower;

let the environment and schedules make the decisions for you.

I have found that I can persist in running for a long time, not because I have extraordinary willpower every day, but because running has become a part of my life structure.

Exercise: The easiest life asset for me

Exercise is currently my most stable health asset.
I have incorporated running and yoga into my daily life.

A 5-kilometer run every day has become the start of my day.

I don't always want to run every day.
But when something becomes a fixed habit, it no longer requires much mental struggle.

Yoga is the same.

After doing it for a long time, it has become a habit of the body.

If one day, or even for several consecutive days, I fails to exercise, I will clearly feel some stiffness all over the body, and I will even feel uncomfortable.

At this stage, exercising is no longer something that one has to force oneself to do; instead, the body will actively remind you: It's time to move.

I think this is probably the best state for persisting in one thing - from "I should do it" to "I am accustomed to doing it", and finally to "I need it".

The truly valuable assets are often not those that generate huge returns in the short term, but those that can accumulate over a long period.

Sleep: Knowing it is important, but it is still something I need to continue improving.

Sleep is another very important health asset.

A while ago, I met a lady in her forties who seemed very exhausted.
During our chat, she told me that she had long had poor sleep.

That was the first time I was particularly intuitively aware that sleep quality has such a significant impact on a person's mental state.

Later, I also found that there are actually not many people with sleep problems around me.

I myself do not have serious sleep problems, but there is one area that I need to improve:

Staying up late.

I knew that I should change this.

This is also something that I have become more accepting of:
Life is not about doing all the good habits at once, but about constantly discovering one's own problems and then gradually changing them one by one.

I can already persist in running, but that doesn't mean I have done well in sleep.

Knowing where I am not good enough and then adjusting is itself growth.

Reading and lifelong learning: Not necessarily measured by "reading one book per week"

"Reading one book per week" sounds like a great habit.
But I have never really achieved it myself.

Reading and learning have become a long-term habit for me.

I will learn English, read books about growth and wealth, and also learn about industry trends and new knowledge.

However, if I set a rule that I must finish reading a book completely every week, I will instead tend to feel stressed.

Later I discovered:

Learning doesn't necessarily have to be measured by "how many books have been read".

A book can certainly provide systematic knowledge.
But a good article, a new perspective, a valuable conversation, an investment experience, or even a failure can also be learning.

What is truly important is not how many books you have read in a year, but several years later:

Have your cognition changed?

This is the true value of the knowledge asset.

I couldn't keep a record before, but later I managed to do so because of blogging.

This is a particularly profound experience for me recently.

Someone once told me:

• "Record yourself."
• "Regularly review."
• "Write down what happens every day."
  

I also knew that these things were meaningful.
But I didn't stick to it.

Until later I started blogging.
I suddenly realized that recording has changed.

In fact, my decision to start blogging was influenced by people like Dan Koe and Naval Ravikant.   The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

They helped me re-understand the act of writing:

Writing is not just about publishing articles;

it can also be about organizing one's thoughts, documenting one's experiences, and constantly understanding oneself.

Influenced by them, I began to try writing a blog.

As I wrote, I suddenly realized - this is exactly what I had always known but never persisted in before, "keeping a record of myself".

I could record my insights after an investment, write about the inspiration a book brought me, or record running, yoga, shopping, even a chat with a friend.

Life itself is the material, and writing is to re-think these experiences.

So now I truly understand that recording doesn't necessarily have a fixed form. Finding a way that suits you, it can become a long-term habit.

For me, this way is to write a blog.

I didn't have a consistent "record" before because I was blogging, and gradually I managed to keep it up.

And its significance became greater.

It no longer just served as a diary for myself, Eventually,  it can be transformed into my own content asset.

When something can generate income, you will indeed be more self-disciplined.

This made me think of a sentence:

When you can use something to make money, you will be more self-disciplined.

I think this sentence has some truth.

But later I discovered that what truly keeps people going might not just be "making money".
Rather, this matter has a definite outcome.

Previously, I would record myself:
I record → I look at it myself → There is no clear feedback → It's easy to give up.

Now, I write blogs:
I observe → I record → I think → I write it as an article → Publish → Accumulate content → Get traffic → Have the opportunity to generate income.

So, what was originally a habit that could be done or not done has turned into a job with definite output.

The website is there, and it reminds you: This matter needs to continue.

I even think that the biggest change of writing blogs is not that I have written so many articles, but that it began to train my observation ability.

Previously, when I saw something, I might just pass it by.
Now I would think:

• Why does this matter touch me?
• What is the reason behind it?
• What is its relationship with health, wealth, and growth?
• Can it become an article?
  

So, life itself has begun to become a material repository.

Work, in turn, trains my observation ability, and observation, in turn, enriches my work.

This might be the "record method" that I have found to be the most suitable for myself.

Good habits have no standard answers; what suits oneself is meaningful.

So, when I look back at those "13 things in life with high returns", I no longer see them as a must-do list.

• Doing 30 minutes of exercise every day is good.
• Getting enough sleep is good.
• Reading is good.
• Meditation is good.
• Keeping a diary is good.
• Meeting friends is good.
• Taking a walk in the park is also good.
  

But not all methods are suitable for everyone.

• Some people gain calmness through meditation.
• Some people release stress through running.
• Some people like keeping a diary.
• Some are more suitable for writing blogs.
• Some like reading articles, listening to podcasts, and observing society to learn.
  

What we really need to do is to find valuable things from others and then use them.

What suits me, I keep.
What doesn't suit me, I let go.

And then, through my own life verification, gradually form my own way.

We are always on the path of becoming ourselves.

I really like a sentence that Jane Fonda said when talking about growth.

She mentioned that we are deeply influenced by our parents' personalities and the way they treat us, and the latter part of life might be a process of constantly recognizing ourselves, correcting ourselves, and finding the true self.

This sentence touched me very much.

Because I increasingly feel that a person's growth is like this.

Each of us has some not-so-good aspects.

It might be laziness, procrastination, or certain inherent thinking patterns and habits.

It's not necessary to ask yourself to be perfect from the very beginning.

But:

Know where you are not good, and then go and fix it.

• I found that I stayed up late, so I gradually adjusted my sleep.
• I found that it's difficult to persist in reading, so I changed my study method.
• I found that I couldn't persist in recording before, so I found this method of writing blogs that is more suitable for myself.
  

This is actually also a kind of life asset.

Constantly recognizing oneself, adjusting oneself, and correcting oneself is itself a long-term ability.

We don't need to become others.
We just hope that today's self is a little better than the past self.

Life assets require long-termism.

Now I increasingly feel that the truly high-return things in life are often those that don't show huge results in the short term but are worth persisting in over the long term.

Doing a little today, doing a little tomorrow; one year later, you will have some changes; ten years later, they might have become the most important assets in your life.

So, I now increasingly like the concept of "life assets".

It has no standard answer.

It's not about someone else telling you how much wealth you should have. Instead, it's about you constantly reflecting on:

• What is worth me accumulating over the long term?
• What kind of lifestyle is worth me maintaining?
• What can make me be grateful to myself ten years from now for what I did today?
  

Then, incorporate these things gradually into your life.
This might be the truly high-return investment in life.

It's not about pursuing a one-time huge return, but about letting each daily choice gradually generate compound interest over time.