Ep 88: Breaking Down the “1% Rule”
If you’ve been following this account for very long, you’ve probably heard me reference the “1% rule” a time or two. This is the philosophy we carry around our training facility to remind us to strive for incremental growth of 1% better every day.
The theory behind this philosophy is that when you make small changes, the accumulation of those changes over time will result in monumental growth.
Each person’s definition of 1% may be different. In barrel racing, for example, 1% could be a mere hundredth of a second.
A friend of mine (who is a rodeo announcer) was telling me about the barrel racing at one of the rodeos he went to recently. At this rodeo, the top five runs were all within 0.07 seconds of each other. My first thought was, “wow, that’s a tough race.” But, my second thought was, “I wonder if each of those riders looked back at their runs, would they find an area of that run that could have been one one-hundredth (0.01) of a second faster?” I would venture to say that all of them would say “yes.”
Over a series of ten runs, if they could each focus on getting 0.01 faster on each run, they would make up an entire tenth of a second--which, in the barrel racing world, is a significant amount of time. In 30 runs, this could turn into 3 tenths of a second. Most places you go, that 3 tenths can easily be the difference between first place and not placing inside the top 15.
Instead of focusing on how they could make that 3 tenths up in a single run, they can break it down into manageable increments. Suddenly, the goal seems much more attainable. That’s the 1% rule.
The key to putting the 1% rule to action is consistency. It is human nature to seek instant gratification. Instead of small steps, we want to take large strides to get to where we want to be. But, over time, this often leads to burnout or more problems down the road. The saying “slow and steady wins the race” is definitely applicable in this case. Define what 1% means to you, and focus on that small step each and every day.
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