Is 1% enough?

The other day I was browsing through a list of articles- I have bookmarked in the past, ones I have enjoyed the most. Basically, these articles were the ones that have impacted my life for good. One such article is written by James Clear, where he talks about improving by 1%.

Most of us would dread over the thought of improving by ‘only’ 1% every day, week or month. So here it is:

Actually, James Clear writes about transforming habits, behavioral science and improving performance. Being a health enthusiast by himself, it actually sounds quite weird that he talks about improving by just 1%, in whatever activity, profession or passion you are involved in. Isn’t it delaying the improvement time, accentuating the efforts and loss of will power in between?

The habits that you are trying to form take time. Especially, if you are trying to replace old ones with new- for good. If you just improve by 1%, your body and mind won’t feel the pinch thereby improving your performance ever so slightly but surely.
Habit formation is a tedious and long process. It takes years to cultivate habits. It is for this very reason- chain smokers, drug addicts, alcoholics, tobacco chewers, nail biters and more, take years to roll back their lives to normal. Therefore they go through rehabilitation process- habit transformation.

If you fuel 1% of improvement every day, week or month, you are actually hacking your body and mind. They will never revolt or produce the kind of resistance against you, otherwise they would; if you try to improve by 50% or more.

What people do in their quest of improvement is- they try to eliminate bad habits in a jiffy. Old habits die hard. People stick to the schedule for first few days but when their body craves & their will power condenses, they don’t have an option but to budge in. You can’t fool your mind and body as they function as you have programmed them to, in the years gone by.

To replace an old habit, you have to reprogram your mind & body and it takes time. If you improve or change it by 1%, you are hardly pushing the issue. Thus, they take it lightly and repeated practice will get a new habit etched in your memory in relatively short time (it doesn’t take that long as some might think it will).

James Clear provides an example as well, of benefits of 1% improvement rule. James recites, “After a poor show at the Olympics in cycling, England appointed a new coach. The coach was assigned the task of building a team and possibly equip them to bring the medal to their country. The coach stressed upon 1% rule, within three years England cycling team won at the International event. And, as they is say, “rest is history”. The team clichéd all top honors at the Beijing Olympics”.

The mantra behind their breathtaking success was improvement and as they improved every day, the goods compounded and they reaped the benefits of it within 4 years.

Do whatever, just strive for 1% improvement. Repeat the process and you will find yourself improved by 100%.

I have taken the liberty to write this because I have lost weight, transformed by body by following this rule. It’s not that tough you see. I am waiting to listen what you think about this little ‘rule’.