The building blocks of our lives are the quality of decisions we make. Our thoughts determine our decisions and actions. Each choice we make influences whether we move closer to our goals or farther away. These decisions compound on each other and are deeply interconnected.

A dirty car is indirectly related to how you perform at work. Whether you experience chaos at your job indirectly affects the quality of time with your kids. We must recognize that we cannot always compartmentalize different aspects of our lives. Every action you take and every decision you make affects different parts of your life. These decisions compound on each other and create ripples across your entire existence.

Since the building blocks of your life are the thoughts and decisions you make, it's important to understand how you can make better choices and how decisions like maintaining a clean car, staying organized at work, truly connecting with your spouse, or even taking a few minutes in the morning to step outside can have effects throughout the day.

So often, people search for some magic formula to achieve success. They don't understand the power of compounding actions that will, over time, have a tremendous impact on your life.

The opposite is also true. You can develop many tiny habits that hurt other decisions and other aspects of your life. If you spend too much money, constantly get sick because you don't take care of your health, start petty fights, engage in harmful substances, and aren't kind to people, it can affect your decisions and, ultimately, the trajectory of your life.

Here are some simple strategies that can compound and will help you make better decisions:

1. Sleep Well and Eat Right

When you get enough sleep and eat well, your body has more energy. When you don't get enough sleep, your body thinks it's under attack. At some point, you will have less decision-making power than someone who is intoxicated. If you go outside in the morning for a few minutes and get natural light, it will train your body to fall asleep faster.

2. Relationships

The quality of your life is heavily correlated to the quality of your relationships. Part of this is simply the reputation you have with others. There are many factors that contribute to your reputation—from how reliable you are to your attitude to the way you can solve issues. Many people act as if just because they're going through a challenge or genuinely feel they have an unfair situation, they can treat others unfairly. No matter how challenging my life has been, I try not to take it out on other people. Be reliable. Be kind. Say "I'm sorry." Make people's day somehow.

3. Money and Time

Two factors that determine your true priorities are the way you spend your time and money. We can spend time doom scrolling, worrying about things that are out of our control, talking behind other people's backs, hanging out with people who drain our energy, and engaging in other destructive behavior. On the other hand, we can spend our time reading something new, upgrading our skills, exercising, talking to a mentor, or anything that positions us better. How we spend our money can either hurt or help our trajectory. There are people who spend hours wondering whom they can borrow money from, how to delay payments, and hoping beyond hope that they don't have an unexpected bill. They spend money on eating out while wondering why they can't get ahead. There are people who live within their means, have money left over to invest, and can responsibly indulge.

4. Be Organized

If someone spends just ten minutes looking for their keys, an important piece of paper, or a file on their computer, it can at the very least cause a little stress. On the other hand, it can throw off your whole day by making you flustered and eating into time for other things. Although misplacing your keys or having trouble finding something happens to the best of us, if it happens repeatedly, it will have ripples throughout your life. It can cause you to be irritable or rude to others.

The building blocks of our lives are the hundreds of decisions we make each day. Repeated decisions become the habits we have, and we are what we habitually do. Decisions and habits are not compartmentalized or isolated. We have an interconnected life. We don't want to work on a project while thinking about the argument we had with our spouse. We don't want to work and receive calls from creditors.

Understanding the power of compounding decisions puts you in control of creating the life you want, one small choice at a time.