THE 1% PRINCIPLE

By: Jack Guyler

Good news! We can change our brain so therefore we can change our thinking that will lead to changed behaviors and responses. We have learned that neural plasticity (the ability of our brain cells to change and reorganize) tells us that we can create new patterns of thoughts leading to new behaviors.

For example, you may have spent years developing the unhealthy habit of not eating well, not exercising and gaining weight. However, the good news is, you can create a new and healthier habit of eating better, exercising and losing weight. You can reverse old habits and replace them with new habits! But it will take time…and patience on your part to not give up when you don’t see instant results.

James Clear talks about 1% progress each day. He says his studies show if you get better at anything you are trying to do by 1% daily, over the course of a year, you will improve 37%. [1] Now, life isn’t this linear. We aren’t always going to improve even 1% every day at things, but his point is well taken – we can improve at a slow and steady pace. Slow and steady wins the race for creating new habits.

Making positive changes in our lives don’t happen overnight, but they can happen. And they happen best when we realize they won’t happen overnight, but that overtime, with consistency we can produce positive changes leading to new habits.

Trying to do something all at once or all in a single moment doesn’t lead to lasting changes and new habits. However, small, steady improvements, that almost go unnoticed most days, overtime lead to new and healthier habits. In other words, winning the daily battles mean far more than we think. For example, eating that piece of fruit or choosing not to eat the chocolate cake really does matter. Getting up early, even though you don’t feel like it, and going to the gym (even if you don’t have a great workout), makes a difference. Why? Because it builds momentum and keeps your momentum going. When we win each day, or at least work to win each day in building our habits, these little wins add up to a great victory overtime.

Imagine fighting to win each day to be better (at whatever goals you have set) and through that process you establish healthier habits that help you actually live out the goals you wanted for your life! Wouldn’t that be gratifying to you? Wouldn’t that make a difference to your spouse? To your kids? To your friends? To others that you want to impact for good? The little things really do matter and what you do everyday matters; and days add up to years and years add up to a lifetime. So keep going – don’t quit – and make small improvements every day! They will change your life and those around you.

Here is a great quote from Jacob Riis: “When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it – but all that had gone before.”

TAKE AWAY: Win the little everyday battles because they add up over time to big and positive changes

1- Atomic Habits, James Clear