POWER OF 1% IMPROVEMENT EVERY DAY
We often underestimate the power of small improvement in day-to-day life.
I had believed that to achieve anything significant in life, I had to do something big, groundbreaking improvement in my life.
But that’s not the truth. Recently I came across a best-selling book written by James Clear named ‘Atomic Habits’, in which he says that we often underestimate the power of small improvement in day-to-day life. We think that to achieve massive success we need to make a massive improvement. A slight improvement on any given day hardly makes any noticeable difference. But if this slight 1% improvement is made over a span of time, the results can be surprising.
Guitar, gymming, healthy food, programming, learning a new language, or anything you imagine, I have left them all halfway because I couldn't see any major results after trying them for several weeks or months. So I left them and got back to the same old cycle of binging on Netflix and playing video games all day and night.
Our most natural tendency is that we make a few changes, and when we do not see any results, we fall back to our same old routine. We have to understand that the most remarkable results come after we cross a particular threshold which we can only cross if we improve day by day for a long term.
I have started to learn to play the piano after reading this particular book and kept in the knowledge I grasped from the book. And after learning it for 6 months or so, I can say that I can play it with 2–3 mistakes in piano pieces. I know that this is not a great achievement to share, but I am keeping up with the piano lessons to reach that threshold. I am improving myself by 1% day by day by practising.
Back then, when I had started, I wasn't even able to play happy birthday on piano, but months of practice have a lot to show for my patience and persistence.
I am now also doing a solo podcast on Spotify to share insights into the books that I read. Being a newbie who hasn't even spoken anything on the mic since childhood, I tremble a lot and blackout while speaking. But I know that if I keep improving day by day, I will be able to speak to great a number of people.
My last takeaway is that don't get disappointed when you start something and don't see any results. Get to know that remarkable results take time to show up, and you will have to go through a valley of disappointment to get to the results you are seeking. Keep improving 1% day by day.