Make consistency your default to 37x any goal — or risk letting bad habits accumulate
“Over the span of moments that make up a lifetime, [daily] choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be.”
Taking a step 1% forward is just about impossible to notice. It’s easy to focus on major defining moments — running a marathon, a graduation ceremony, a big promotion — and underestimate the value of the daily inches of progress.
With that thinking comes the idea that massive success calls for massive action. Pressure mounts, usually on account of ourselves, that achieving something requires improvement measured in nothing less than leaps.
But prioritizing that 1% each day is far more meaningful and sustainable when it comes to achievement in any domain. A tiny motion, repeated without fail, yields far greater returns than anyone can achieve in a single effort.
Here’s the math: If you make a 1% step forward each day for a year, you’ll be 37 times better on day 365.
And here’s how it looks like in an equation: 1.01^365 = 37.8
But at the same time, if you decline 1% each day for a year, you’ll find yourself at basically zero, as if you never started the task or skill or project in the first place.
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It works the same way compound interest works with investments. Money multiplies itself over time just as the results of habits multiply the more consistently you do them.
In a given day, any 1% change is imperceptible. It’s difficult to fully appreciate a daily effort because it seems pointless without an immediate yield.
“Success is the product of daily habits — not once-in-a-lifetime transformations,” Atomic Habits author James Clear writes. “Over the span of moments that make up a lifetime, these choices determine the difference between who you are and who you could be.”
Clear is right. Small victories (and small losses) are what snowball into the most lasting, consequential results.
For example, your muscles don’t seem to visibly change day to day when you lift weights, but over time, the entire composition of your body is new, stronger, and more defined.
Incorporating small, daily habits can be exciting at first, but that motivation wanes as the results roll in slowly. We can make changes to our days, but it can be easy to revert back to old ways because the results of our efforts never seem to come quickly enough.
The slow pace of change — and reaping results — can make it easy to slip. Meanwhile, it’s the same thing that allows us to rationalize bad habits. Just like finishing a single workout won’t create any noticeable change, skipping one day at the gym or eating an unhealthy meal won’t either.
But as stated, those errors, at the rate of 1% a day, accumulate negatively all the way to zero. What’s worse is that stepping backwards 1% can become a habit, too.
“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret,” wrote self-help author Jim Rohn. “The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.”
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