Joseph Asare Jnr

We have all heard the good old saying, “little drops of water make a mighty ocean.” Indeed, how true!

2018 through to 2019, I was lucky to be part of an 18-month global executive leadership program with my company. It has by far been the best training of my life. I had the benefit of a compulsory executive coaching during the period and after one of those coaching sessions, my coach mentioned the “Rule of 5” to me and I have never forgotten it since. 

10 years prior 2019, I had never read a single book of more than 50 pages from cover to cover. In fact, I had never been disciplined enough to read a single book through and through in 12 months for the past 10years. I had bought books many times every year but never read any of them. This frustrated me because I love to write and that means I should be reading more than the average person. Yet, my inability to develop a reading habit for 10 years had now become a habit that I couldn’t break free off. I had tried everything I thought will get me to actually read and stay reading but none worked. I forced myself to buy books only to shelve them. I carried books on planes to read only to find sleeping and watching movies more appealing. I put books by my bedside, so they are the last thing I see before I go to bed and the first thing I see when I wake up but that’s all they were – a sad reminder to me that I really cannot get myself to read.

Every time I picked books and began to read, either it didn’t take me more than 10mins to fall asleep or I never was able to keep turning the pages. Instead I kept changing books as if they were the problem. I was looking for books with great titles and captivating content that will keep me hooked on from cover to cover. I didn’t realize I needed to change to get hooked on.

Then came the divine intervention by my coach with the “Rule of 5.” Indeed, when she first mentioned it to me, it was a suggestion to help with another issue we were discussing and about 3 months down the line, I figured I could also use it to break this bad entrenched habit of a writer who doesn’t read. 

So, the Rule of 5 came from Jack Canfield who once together with his partner, Hansen were overwhelmed with choice of how to make progress of a research project they were working on. Canfield and Hansen eventually asked teacher Ron Scolastico for his advice and Scolastico used the analogy of a lumberjack cutting down a tree to simplify what they needed to do. He said, “If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings at it with a very sharp axe, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.” With that advice, Canfield and Hansen created what they called “The Rule of Five”: A commitment to taking five daily actions that would quickly move their goal towards completion.

This is exactly what I dared to do to try to axe my mighty reading tree. The process has been tough and plagued with inconsistencies but it has still brought me a long way. Surely a 10-year-old tree will take some time to fall and I am still at it. In 2019, I tried to implement this idea. I decided to read 5 pages of a book everyday thus 35 pages a week. And the results? I managed for the first time is as many years as I can remember, read 5 books in less than 12 months! This is an amazing miracle for me who had never read a full book for the last 10 years! Talk of little drops of water making a mighty ocean. 

And don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a walk in the park. There were days that I couldn’t take my 5 swings at the reading tree for various reasons but I cut myself some slack – I acknowledged the difficulty and didn’t put myself down. Instead, I decided to by all means make the 35 pages a week even if I couldn’t make the 5 days consistently every day. I covered the arrears in other days. In doing so, I kept swinging the axe. My immediate goal is to develop the habit of swinging the axe. The ultimate goal is to keep the habit of swinging the axe daily without fail.

The testimony of 5 books in less than 12 months is probably no feat for someone with a good reading habit – some do minimum a book a month. But it is a big achievement for me considering where I am coming from. This year, 2020, I am already on it with my first book. Let me drum home how the little drops of just 5 pages a day will become a mighty pile of read books in 5yrs from now for which I am extremely excited. 5 pages a day means 35 pages a week which still sounds unimpressive, right? But 35 pages a week means 1,820 pages a year. With an average of 250 pages a book, that is at least 7 books a year which is 36 read books on my shelf in 5yrs. Compared to the last decade, that is a mighty ocean for me considering I am only investing max 30mins out of the 1,440mins in a day into reading. And of course, I want to improve to do 10 pages or 15 pages a day as I master the habit, which is easily doable. That will double or triple the impact. Imagine what that will do to my knowledge and writing hobby!

Your mighty tree, unlike mine, may not be reading. It might be learning a musical instrument or learning a sport; perhaps conducting a massive research that you are unsure how to start or translating a business idea into a business. It may be improving the communication in your marriage or spending some quality time with your kids or spouse every day or drawing closer to God through prayer or bible study. Or is it as simple as mastering the use of MS excel or powerpoint, or even as big as formulating some ground-breaking products in a lab or writing a book or learning how to cook. Whatever it is, I recommend the Rule of 5 to you. Just take a few moments, maybe 30 mins, an hour or 5 hours (depending on what it is) every day, to take a swing at that goal. And I can guarantee you, that as surely as night turns into day and the sun rises in the east and sets in the west every day, your mighty tree will fall one day. With that habit, you can reach any goal and break every bad habit before you know it. 

Do not waste another day, pick up your axe and get to the tree. Start today, take 5 swings today. Keep at it daily and watch the tree fall to your feet. These gigantic strides towards achieving your goals or towards breaking bad habits indeed come in the guise of baby steps.