For everything in life, there is either growth or decay. The “steady state” is an illusion. When you look back on any time period, a certain aspect of your life either improved or regressed. A relationship either got stronger or withered. A facet of your intelligence or physical makeup either weakened or strengthened.

Sometimes it’s not always good when certain areas grow and it isn’t necessarily bad when certain areas atrophy. But the reality is binary. When you look back on the day (or week, month, year, decade, hour, minute, or any other span of time) and focus on a particular aspect of your life, you either progressed or you didn’t. Negative or positive. The longer the period you view, the more the trend is apparent.

There is no zero but there are such values as -2 or +4. And once you recognize this, it’s much easier to make a scorecard. Want to lose weight? Give yourself a point if you ate below your calorie goal. Did that and worked out? Two points for you. Failed to do your workout and ate a bunch of junk food? Negative for the day. [For those who might ask, “But what if I worked out but ate too much: don’t they cancel it out and lead to zero?” then I’d like to point out that 95% of body composition is nutrition-related so in that specific scenario you are negative for the day.] And if you try to lie to yourself, check the mirror and/or scale tomorrow morning.

So you want to publish a book. Did you write today? (This is a yes or no answer.) You are either that much closer or that much further behind.

Name anything and the same concept applies: Learning a language, growing in holiness, becoming a better cook, switching careers, achieving more happiness in life, whatever. I defy you to name something that violates this law. Just as there are laws of physics, there are laws of life and this is one of them.

Even if you can’t do as much as you want, do something. This at least puts you in the positive as opposed to the negative column. (There is no third column.)

As James Clear states:

It’s better to do less than you hoped than nothing at all. No zero days.

And I’d like to add: because zero days are impossible. You either moved forward or you moved back. You can’t skip turns in the game of life.

But it’s also important to point out that growth requires rest. Just like muscles will stunt if not given breaks (for they are only broken down and have no time to repair themselves), so it is with any kind of growth. The idea applies to many areas, but on “rest days” you actually rack up a negative balance by working out because you put yourself behind. This fact, and that of breaking down to build up stronger, are two paradoxes: to grow, there needs to be some decay.