Are You Asking for Simple Improvements Daily?

I have always been fascinated by the compound effect. I love the quirky examples out there that show how saving 'x' amount of dollars per month, starting at age 18, will allow someone to pay cash for a 3-bedroom, 2-bath home by the age of 30. These examples intrigue me because in most cases anyone can achieve these results, depending of course on the example given. 

Contrary to what we’ve been made to believe, we don’t need massive action to change our lives. Taking small steps daily can lead to massive gains. Many times, we see the results, or the finished product of someone’s effort; a new house, new career, or a fit body, and think these things are the result of some radical change. Most often the opposite is true. These things are made possible by small incremental changes and improvements that have compounded to make these results possible. One of my favorite illustrations is the one percent example.

The destiny of British Cycling changed one day in 2003. The governing body for professional cycling in Great Brittan hired Dave Brailsford as their new performance director. Professional cyclist in Great Brittan had only won a single gold medal since 1908, and never won one of the biggest cycling races, the Tour de France in over 110 years. A top bike manufacturer in Europe refused to even sell its bikes to the team for fear it would hurt their sales! However, Brailsford was onto something that would forever change British cycling. 

Brailsford was committed to a strategy that he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains”. Now it doesn’t sound too exciting when stated this way but it’s simply the idea of achieving a small improvement in everything you do. In Brailsford’s case, the idea goes like this: If you broke down everything that goes into riding a bike and improve it by one percent you would get a significant increase when you add up all the improvements. This strategy changed everything!

This is where the quirky examples I like so much come into play.

In the book, Atomic Habits, by James Clear, James points out that if you improve one percent each day you will end up 37 times better at the end of a year. 37 times! To me this is not only fascinating, but motivating as well. Are you asking for simple improvements daily? Think of the gains we miss if we are not asking for these small improvements. This is the perfect time to begin asking for these improvements from your team, and from yourself! What will you achieve this year?

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