Yesterday, a reader wrote in with a question:
Student Question: “Hello, Master Chi! I’d like to ask about the weekly mini-goals you encouraged us to build in your last article — what kind of change or benefit do they actually bring to a person’s destiny? My concern is: can such tiny, tiny little goals really produce any meaningful results? I hope you can explain the reasoning behind this. Thank you.”
Master Chi’s Response:
After reading this, I want to give you an answer that is completely unequivocal: if you can consistently commit to completing one positive, forward-moving mini-goal each week, you are not merely creating good changes for yourself. You could even say — you are rewriting your own destiny. Rewriting it into something better, wealthier, and more fulfilling.
Why do I say this? Because as a destiny reading (命理) expert, I have encountered far too many people, witnessed far too many lives, and reviewed far too many fates. I firmly believe that one’s foundational heaven chart determines at most three-tenths of a person’s destiny — setting their innate talents, natural aptitude, and starting point. But the remaining seven-tenths? Those are absolutely, without exception, earned through one’s own effort and cultivation.
And no matter how enormous a goal may seem, it can always be broken down into smaller objectives, conquered one step at a time.
So when you set yourself one mandatory mini-goal each week, it may look like an unremarkable arrangement. But given time, it will accumulate — drop by drop — into results that will astonish and inspire.
If this still isn’t clear, let me go deeper.
Consider an example I often give: why is it that children from schools of different caliber can be distinguished not even through conversation, but simply through their bearing and presence?
The root of it is this: children from elite schools, across nine years of education, absorb an enormous quantity of quality nourishment. Children from struggling schools may never even develop basic study habits.
Are nobles born noble? No. Are the poor born poor? Also no. What separates their fates is nothing more than whether they received sufficient, quality education — drop by drop — along the way.
Take a student who ends up at a weak school. Behind that student, there is almost certainly a family that lacks any concept of education — parents who are hard manual laborers, with neither the mental framework for study nor the time and energy to properly educate a child. The teacher has no foundation to build on, the school environment is chaotic, and the child cannot possibly enter a state of genuine learning. So the child grows up and continues into the same laboring class, inheriting the “ignorance” of the family tradition — holding low-income positions as a direct consequence of lacking knowledge, while simultaneously being harvested by consumerism and various predatory schemes without even realizing it. A vicious cycle with no exit.
Now contrast that with a student who enters an elite school. Any family that can get their child into such a place either has the financial means to afford the school district, or has gone out of their way to access a high-quality private institution. Either way, the parents themselves belong to an elite group and are hardly strangers to the idea that education unlocks everything. The teacher receives a high-quality cohort; a little guidance goes a long way, and the children absorb what they learn. The school culture is sound, and it is actually hard for a child there to go astray. Good education combined with a good family produces a future that lands, at minimum, at the mid-management level of commerce or government — circles where resources are concentrated and information flows freely. Life tends only to improve from there.
Now I ask you: was any of this achieved overnight? No. Every single bit of it accumulated, drop by drop, over time.
Trace back three generations in any elite family, and you will almost certainly find an ancestor who grew up in a struggling school, who started from the very bottom in the dust and grime. And then, bit by bit, accumulated experience. Bit by bit, reflected and reviewed. Bit by bit, built up assets. Bit by bit, built wealth and prosperity. There were successes and failures along the way — but at its core, that life was built like a skyscraper: starting with the rough, humble work of digging foundations and pouring concrete, and only then, slowly, rising to where it stands today.
Have you noticed this pattern? The further down the social ladder someone sits, the more desperately they chase overnight wealth — wanting to stuff themselves full in one breath, fat to the point of overflow, without a thought for consequences. Yet the higher someone rises, the more their culture tends toward stability — methodical, step-by-step, patient. Every skill to be learned, every experience to accumulate, every period of lying low and waiting — not a shred of impatience.
The reason these cultures differ so radically is that those at the top understand: breaking a large goal into small ones is the fastest way forward. Walking slowly, walking steadily — is the fastest path.
So consistently setting small goals and completing them — continuously, steadily evolving — is the work of a lifetime. Whether you are thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty, this is something to be maintained without end.
Take the most foundational subjects: commerce, finance, and law. They may appear formidably complex, but if you genuinely set your mind to mastering them, it is not so daunting.
Spend a little effort working through Graham’s two classic texts — reading ten or so pages a day. Read to the end, and the whole thing takes no more than two months. But after those two months, your foundational level will decisively surpass 99.99% of the so-called experts and masters you encounter.
Or when you find yourself with a stretch of time to spare, pick up an introductory law text — or even buy a copy of the Civil Code and flip through the sections relevant to your own life now and then. Then, on the day you unfortunately run into trouble, you will at least know how to immediately reach for the weapon of law to protect yourself. You will know how to communicate with a lawyer. You will know how to navigate authorities and administrative bodies.
Truly — none of this is difficult.
Spend one hour a day absorbing quality nourishment. Surrender a little of the hollow, low-grade entertainment. Is that really so hard?
Do this, and you will soon find that with every small bite of quality knowledge you take in, you are achieving growth that is visible to the naked eye. Wait a year, and you will have undergone a complete transformation.
And transformation is changing your destiny — cutting away your weaknesses one by one, becoming more excellent and more powerful, step by step.
Although I have not yet seen your destiny chart (命盘), and I do not know in which field you will achieve your accomplishments, what scale of wealth you will ultimately command, or what kind of partner you will be fortunate enough to build a life with — regardless of all that, your future will, without question, be a better version of what exists today.
Of this iron-clad future, I do not hold a single moment of doubt.