Let’s b honest, we all want to improve our lives. When we see others surrounding us living a better life we wonder why we are so far away from our goals and from the life we want for ourselves. Often times, after a long day at work, we don’t have energy left to work on our goals. It just seems so hard. We rather spend the rest of our day indulging into entertainment rather than education, getting our mind lost in the social media feeds rather than creating an action plan for our next move, promising ourselves we will do it tomorrow. But you already know how the story goes, days go by and we haven’t made any progress towards our goals yet.
Well, life happens while we live it and more often than not we get caught up into something we have to deal with: family matters, illnesses, chores… let alone a pandemic. But if there’s one thing the current pandemic taught me, it’s exactly that you have to take chances while others are slipping on them. I’ve always been a curious person, I’ve always read books and studied a lot, but the pandemic made me a favor by accelerating the process. So, while everybody else was binge-watching Netflix TV shows, I kept forging. I learned you have to be patient and consistent, that there’s nothing wrong with failing and that if you believe in something you just have to trust the process.
If I’m here today sharing my journey is because I want to inspire you to do the same, to take action one step at a time towards your goals.
Get 1% better every day
I didn’t invent this, but after reading Atomic Habits by James Clear, I kinda made it my mantra; there’s no need to start with a giant leap, focus on getting better 1% every day. That’s the power of compound interest.
If you can consistently do this for an entire year, you’ll get 37.78 times better; conversely, if you get 1% worse every day, you’ll end up very close to zero in one year. Where do you want to be in one year from now? I know it might sound daunting at first as we don’t know where to start, but let’s see some actionable steps.
How to get 1% better every day
We are what our habits make of us. It’s estimated that over 60% of the things we do in a day are actions taken by our routine and not a conscious decision of the moment. Hence, we’d rather develop the habits that help us get where we want. But how do we do that? Technically there’s no “good” or “bad” habit, there are only habits that are in line or not with your goals, that take you closer or farther away from your goals. For example, having a beer is not necessarily a bad habit; say you’re out a Friday night with your friends, is there anything wrong having a beer? I guess no. But say you’re an alcoholic trying to quit your addiction, would that bring you closer or farther away from your goal? I guess you understand now.
So, first we need to create a sort of identikit of the person we want to be, a very detailed one. If you want to be a fit person, imagine yourself being one. What does a fit person do during the day? What do they eat? What people are they surrounded by? What motivates them? Try do imagine as many details as you can an picture yourself in the same situation.
How to find time
Does watching Netflix 4 hours per day help you get closer to the kind of person you want to be? Maybe you could just cut down to two and use the other two hours to study, research, plan, rest, spend quality time with your loved ones, learning a new skill or simply do anything that takes you closer to the identity of the person you want to be. Or simply have a look at the screen time stats on your phone, you might be surprised you spend 6 to 8 hours per day on social media. Can you imagine what you could do with all that extra time?
I personally prefer to wake up early in the morning and have the first hours of the day for me and for me only. I know that if I wake up later and start working right away, at the end of the day I’ll be tired and my willpower will be almost exhausted. So, I prefer to use the portion of the day when my mind is fresh to work on my own goals. But that’s me, it doesn’t have to be the same for everybody.
How to stop procrastinating
Watching tutorials or taking online courses is a good way to start. But exceeding the time spent on those is a form of procrastination if we never take action. Getting started with the knowledge we need is great, but after some time it’s just time to get the ball rolling. Oh yes, expect to suck at the beginning, as we all have sucked when we started. That’s most likely the reason we never start and instead keep procrastinating: fear of failure.
I’ll tell you what, without failure there’s no growth. If you don’t lose you don’t grow. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not here welcoming failures as a blessing, but neither am I making so much drama if I fail. The only failure is if you quit. What we actually fear is judgement from others, what could they think of us if we fail. Easier said then done, we should disregard what others think of us. People are so good at spotting failures in others because they see themselves reflected in them, so just go your way and don’t think about it.
How to achieve your goals
First, your goals should be subdivided in smaller steps, a sort of roadmap made of milestones that help you stay on track. Setting a huge, distant goal can have a scaring effect as it seems too far away and unachievable. But if you have done a good job to break it down in smaller steps, you only need to start and go get the first one. Just get 1% better every day! Most of the people don’t take action because they are too busy watching Netflix, so if you do you are already many steps ahead of them.
Second, track your progress. What gets tracked, gets managed. Set up a journal, a task manager or simply a progress tracker. Keep it simple, but do it. Not only does it give you a dopamine rush every time you complete a task and see progress, it also helps you have a picture of where you are going.
Third, focus on the process. You want to lose weight? Don’t set your goal to “I want to lose 20 pounds”, try to set your goal based on the process that would help you get there, something along these lines: “I will go to the gym 3 times a week for the net 6 months” or “I will walk 10,000 steps per day 5 days a week”. Sometimes we get frustrated if we monitor our goals and evaluate them in terms of just numbers, so focusing on the process makes it easier for us to stick to it.
Conclusion
Everything I shared in this post isn’t anything new, I didn’t invent any of this. It’s just my point of view on what I’ve learned so far. But I still hope that after reading this post you feel inspired to take action and think of ways to improve your life by improving your habits. So, let me ask you one question: what action could you take today that would help you become 1% better every day?