Improve Yourself 1% At A Time

As this unconventional COVID-19 school year is wrapping up, a local iHeartRadio station has been advertising how they’ve asked prominent leaders and celebrities to give commencement addresses. While I’m not convinced many high school graduates are going to search these out–I certainly wouldn’t have at that age–it did get me thinking about what I’d say in that situation. And I’ve decided it would be two things: it’ll be okay when you discover life sometimes sucks, and improvements only come in small steps.

Life Will Suck

I had unrealistic expectations out of high school. And out of college. And probably when I woke up this morning. Life rarely goes as planned, despite the huge market space for “experts” telling us how great our life will be if we do “this one weird trick.”

We’re going to have disappointments. We’re going to have setbacks. We won’t always have rampant diseases spreading through the world like we do today, but even in normal times we’ll lose jobs, promotions, clients, friends and family in the normal course of life.

I thought bosses would always be fair and treat their employees with competence and respect. Everyone who has ever had a boss is now laughing.

I used to believe doctors could take care of anything. A cold bucket of reality taught me differently.

Then there’s the parenting thing. Welcome to Holland!

So, yeah, it’ll suck. You’re not alone in the sucking, despite the deceptively positive posts you see on Facebook and Instagram. It sucks for us all.

We’ll be deep in our personal valleys from time to time where it’ll look like there’s no way forward. Sometimes we’ll be there for a really, really, long time. But there’s also beautiful vistas where everything will be clear and beautiful. There will be times when everything is amazing.

And it usually comes from the smallest things. Helping someone. Getting a flower to grow (something I still haven’t consistently achieved). Turning in that project underbudget and on time. Watching a student learn what you teach.

Life won’t meet your expectations. So lower your expectations and enjoy.

Improve Little By Little

“Okay, Tim,” at least someone out there is thinking, “I should just enjoy life as I wallow it mediocrity.”

Hey, if it works for you! But to quote psychologist Scott Barry Kauffman, “It’s good to accept and love who you are, but it’s also good to know that you can change for the better.”

In other words, the world may suck, but that doesn’t mean YOU have to suck.

Even though you can be better, watch those goals. Having huge aspirational goals like “Imma sell more books than J.K. Rowling” will hand you nothing but disappointment.

It’s great to have stretch goals, but the real changes in your life are going to be 1% at a time. James Clear discusses this concept in Atomic Habits with British Cycling. British Cycling was so bad that one European bike manufacturer refused to SELL them bikes because they were afraid people seeing these bozos on their bikes would hurt sales.

Then, British Cycling made little changes, just 1% at a time. They painted the insides of their trailers white to spot grime on the bikes. The rubbed alcohol on the tires. They wore electrically heated overshorts. None of these things would have made a difference by themselves, but, combined, they were soon winning championships.

(Note: there’s also some indication that drugs may have been involved, which is too bad. But, let’s be honest, the drugs alone wouldn’t have gotten them from last place to first. They had to have everything else in place, too.)

We need our small, day to day victories. The small change I can point to and say “yes, I did that better today than yesterday.”

Get there just a little earlier. Go to sleep a little earlier. Talk to one more potential client. Always just a little bit more.

And if your 1% changes focus on contributions you can add to the world, all the better.

The best part of these 1% changes is that if you do mess up, it’s only a 1% mess up. Just commit to doing better tomorrow. If you do it enough, you’ll find yourself miles away from where you started.

These little changes add up.

Will you become a drug free British Cycling? Do you push Taylor Swift off the charts? Does your novel get read in classrooms for generations? No, probably not. But you can take small steps in that direction if that’s what you want. You can’t be whatever you want to be, despite what so many of our school teachers taught us. But you can be a whole lot better you.

And that, my friends, is more than enough.