I know what you probably must be thinking, "as if there were a need for another self help book." Am I right? Probably.

I might have thought so too. But this revised (for 2011) edition of Jeff Olson's book The Slight Edge will prove you wrong. This book will tie anything self improvement programs you might have tried together and make it easier to fulfill.

It tells of how there are only two possible directions we can go:

1. UP the success curve, or
2. DOWN the failure curve.

The reason is beacuse of our daily simple decisions that are "easy to do but also easy not to do."

For example we all know that we should eat more fresh fruits and vegetables but, with the growing rates of obesity a lot of us obviously don't do what we know we should.

On my own example back in high school over twenty years ago I loved (and still do) playing drums. Wanted to be a rock star (like lots of us do). And I was pretty good (or so people told me).

The problem came when I started playing role playing games and let my drumming get neglected. Practicing drums was easy to do, it was also easy not to do. And now here I am not a professional musician.

A weakness of our society when it comes to self help programs is we live in a push button/microwave dinner/fast food restaurants way of life. We want instant results.

When people try something new like for instance affiliate marketing they might read an ebook on it or sign up with Wealthy Affiliate or any other membership course and create a website. When they don't see immediate results in the form of piles of money rolling into their Pay Pal account within a couple of weeks or days they blame the system or the course and quit.

Two stories from the book that you've no doubt heard before the one about the tortoise and the hare. The tortoise won the race with steady progress towards his goal.

The other story of two guys given a choice by their father on his death bed:

1. You can have a million dollars
2. You can have a penny that is doubled every day or a month.

And you know how that goes. With any type of endeavor you get into success is most likely to come slowly. We don't generally see the results of our daily good decisions or bad decisions until years down the road.

Will that cigarette, joint, night out getting drunk kill you today? Probably not. But the years of doing it will.

Will you become a millionaire rock star by practicing guitar for two hours today? Probably not. But do it for years and you just might.

That's the message from the Slight Edge. Improve in baby steps.

Now go out and make it a great day and a great life.