Sunday, October 16, 2016

The 1% Factor

I recently learned about a very technical sounding, but very cool concept.  It is called the "aggregation of marginal gains".  I think I will call it the "1% factor".  James Clear explained this concept as  “the 1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do."

He said, "It’s so easy to overestimate the importance of one defining moment, and underestimate the value of making better decisions on a daily basis.

Almost every habit that we have — good or bad — is the result of many small decisions over time. And yet, how easily we forget this when we want to make a change. So often we convince ourselves that change is only meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome associated with it." No matter the ambition or goal, "we often put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about. Meanwhile, improving by just 1 percent isn’t notable (and sometimes it isn’t even noticeable), but it can be just as meaningful, especially in the long run."

"Most people love to talk about success as an event, but the truth is that most of the significant things in life aren’t stand-alone events, but rather the sum of all the moments when we chose to do things 1 percent better or 1 percent worse". The small 1% improvements makes the difference.  

A wise educator, Paul Barth added that "Most often our greatest successes will never be recognized with a trophy or plaque. No one will stand at a banquet to applaud our multiple triumphs." Most often our greatest successes come "when we choose to try again after failing at something or when we give our best effort in making progress toward accomplishing a goal. It is found in the small decisions that we make on a daily basis as we continuously improve ourselves."


graphic by Jeff Olsen

Amazing isn't it!  Working to incrementally improve something in our lives by just 1% consistently can lead to incredible long-term success!  I invite you to join me in choosing just one or two things to improve by 1%.  You can do great things, so count all those little decisions you make that head you in the direction you want to go, 1% at a time!




To read the entire article by James Clear, here is the link: http://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains

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