Hi Friends,
What did you implement last week? Did you go deep and explore your true core?
Today I want to share a guest blog on the 1% rule written by Cecilia Lacerda.
Once you are in the self-improvement route, consistency is the most challenging but the most rewarding trait you must develop.
It means that in the beginning there is too much to do yet too little result to see. It might seem easier to stick with old habits, and hope for the best rather than daily try to change your reality and expand your personality.
But if you stay on track, if you are consistent and persistent with your goals, you will begin to see results. It is by doing a bit every day that your life changes in the long run. It is through compounded bits that, over time, will have a powerful impact on your life.
That is what Alan Weiss argues with his “One Percent Solution.” The concept says that if you aim to improve by only 1 percent each day, these tiny changes will compound and generate massive growth.
It might seem like not much in the beginning. But each day you take yourself to be just 1 percent better, these improvements start to compound on each other. Gradually, you will see the effect these improvements have on your life. To illustrate that, observe how these numbers grow:
In 3 months, you will be 2,4 times better than today.
In 6 months, you will be 6 times better than today.
In 12 months, you will be 36 times better than you are today.
Once you create momentum, things will be easier and faster each and every day, and you do your work slightly better.
You just need to aim for 1 percent better than the day before and 1% than the day after.
That is why planning tasks that will be meaningful to you — professionally, educationally, financially, personally, physically, and mentally — is essential.
That is also why mastering your habits is the best way to reach your goals. It is through implementing good habits and cutting bad ones that you make these tiny improvements part of your life.
It is by implementing habits that you are consistent with your improvements. It is by planning your goals that you are persistent on this route.
In his book, Atomic Habits, James Clear describes how the British cycling team went from average results to excellent results in a few years. Everything started when the organization hired a new performance director, Dave Brailsford. The team had endured almost a hundred years of mediocrity and never won the Tour of France.
The new coach was hired to change the British cycling team, and he employed a strategy that he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains.” The plan was to make tiny improvements in everything they did.
As Brailsford said, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”
Just a few years after Brailsford became director, the British cycling team dominated the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, winning the majority of gold medals. In the following Olympic Games in London, the team set nine Olympic records at once. In the same year, Bradley Wigging was the first British cyclist to win the Tour of France. He was followed up by this teammate Chris Froome who won five victories to the British team in six years.
This story proves the importance that tiny moments have on our journey if we focus on making them part of our daily lives.
Rather than achieving big results through big effort in a short time, it is much more valuable to achieve small results through small effort in a long time. Improving by 1 percent might not be notable, nor noticeable, but in due time it culminates in a much more expressive success.
In the beginning, there is little difference between making one choice or the other. It won’t impact you much on a particular day. But by sticking to your choices, either 1 percent better or 1 percent worse, you will begin to see them shaping you.
Keep in mind that by getting better just 1 percent each day for a year, you will be thirty-six times better than once you started your journey. In contrast, if you get 1 percent worse each day for a year, you will reach almost zero.
Just 1%. So far the guest blog. So what are you going to tackle now with a 1 percent change? It's doable. PS: Message me for a free consult to start moving to a more confident you.
You are loved. Deeply loved. Loved beyond measure.
Until next time, Isabelle
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