Do you know why it’s so difficult to convince teenagers that smoking will kill them? Because they’re not 70 years old, bent over a sink, hacking their lungs out — trying to catch one more breath. Just because a bad decision doesn’t lead to bad results right away doesn’t mean it wasn’t a bad decision in the first place.

Life is what you make it.

Your actions have consequences. If you work hard for long enough you can achieve just about anything you can ever dream up — even though it can seem like what you’re doing isn’t making a difference, for good or bad.

You will often feel like despite all your hard work and dedication that your effort isn’t making a difference.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

That’s just a lie your brain is telling your soul so that you won’t have to be concerned with your behavior. Replacing fatty foods with vegetables and working out each day will have a huge impact over a year of your life. But for the first few weeks and months, you can feel like your new healthy habits aren’t really making a difference in your life. Most people who make a New Years resolution about getting in shape give up on those goals by the first week in February.

They give up.

Why? Because changing your eating habits and exercise patterns for a few weeks don’t add up to a huge difference right now. It takes months for your body to start operating differently. The same is true with spending habits, rebuilding personal relationships, taking on more responsibility at work, looking for a new job, trying to get promoted, investing, building a business, or any other goal that you’re working on right now.

If you do good things you’ll get good results.

If you stop doing good things, you might still have it good right now because of the good things you did in the past. Don’t be fooled — not doing good things means you’re going to experience bad results shortly.

Think about that next time you want to throw up your hands and complain about your bad luck.

Bad luck isn’t your problem.

You are right now exactly where you put yourself in the weeks and months before today. You will be tomorrow where you’re working on putting yourself right now. The real question is: Will you be in a place that you want to be when you wind up there?