Ok so.
If you’re into self-improvement and have read Atomic Habits by James Clear, you’ve no doubt heard of the 1% better every day idea (if not, the pretty picture below will explain to you).
Basically it’s saying if you improve 1% a day for a year, you’ll have improved 37.78% by the end of that year. Which is crazy considering 1% seems like a whole lot of nothing. But over a year (365 days!) your efforts compound like wildfire.
My only issue with Mr. Clear’s 1% thing is that I find it hard to know what counts as a 1% improvement vs. a 2% improvement.
Because there is a big difference.
- 1% better everyday (1.01³⁶⁵) = 37.78% net improvement
- 2% better everyday (1.02³⁶⁵) = 1,377% net improvement
- 3% better everyday (1.03³⁶⁵) = 48,482% net improvement
- 4% better everyday (1.04³⁶⁵) = 1,648,803% net improvement
- 5% better everyday (1.05³⁶⁵) = 54,211,841% net improvement
What I’m saying is, our days vary. We may have a 1% day, a 5% day, a -1% day, several 0% days, or even a motherload 20% day.
Our lives aren’t robotically linear like: 1 11 1 1 1 1 111 1 1 1 1 1
But rather like: 1 0 -1 3 20 7 7 9 2 -5 -10 -1 1 4 5 3
- 6% better everyday (1.06³⁶⁵) = 1,724,411,147% net improvement
- 7% better everyday (1.07³⁶⁵) = 53,098,084,597% net improvement
- 8% better everyday (1.08³⁶⁵) = 1,583,692,108,826% net improvement
- 9% better everyday (1.09³⁶⁵) = 45,779,574,134,956% net improvement
- 10% better everyday (1.10³⁶⁵) = 1,283,305,580,313,352% net improvement
And you might look at these numbers and think, that’s ridiculous mate. 1,283,305,580,313,352% improvement in one year is just dumb.
I mean, it kinda is. But why not? Who is to say you can’t make a 1.2 quadrillion percent improvement in one year? Never settle for less when there is a possibility for more.
p.s. i am not delusional.