Becoming 1% Better Every Day

I first learnt about "Kaizen" during my first Six Sigma training. It is now more popular and better known as people use the philosophy also in personal development.

Kaizen is an approach that improves an organisation overall by creating continuous improvement based on the idea that small, ongoing positive changes can lead to significant improvements.

The same approach can also be used on improving our lives:

Our brains are programmed to resist change. But by taking small steps we can effectively rewire our nervous system for the process of change and progress rapidly toward our goals.

When life gets scary and difficult we tend to look for solutions in places where it is easy or at least familiar to do so and not in the dark, uncomfortable places where real solutions might lie. We should use times of difficulty to remember that fear is the body’s gift, alerting us to a challenge. By asking small, gentle questions, we keep the fight or flight response off. 

Kaizen questions such as "What’s the smallest step I can take to be more efficient?" allow us to bypass our fears.

If you are trying to reach a specific goal, ask yourself every day:

What is one small step I could take toward reaching my goal?

Change doesn’t happen overnight. It happens in small almost unnoticeable steps.

Each day when you wake up try to be only 1% better at everything you do.

Over a year, you’ll be 37% better - not 365% due to compound growth logic.

It’s not that easy to be 1% better every day. We all have crap days as well as joyful ones. Be kind to yourself. Commit to kaizen - as this will then be an intention- but do what you can.

Tomorrow when you wake up you might forget about all this and do the crap you normally do. To prevent that find out what excites you, what makes you feel good. Do more of that. Do less of what sucks. Change what does not work. With small steps, with no rush...

If you are intrigued I also recommend you to read:

“One Small Step Can Change Your Life”book by Robert Maurer.

If you want to continue the discussion email or follow me on LinkedIn.

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Zeynep Yalcin Parks is lead consultant at Derin Consulting. She helps individuals and organisations become better at achieving their purpose.

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* Cover photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash.