“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” - Ernest Hemingway
When I was younger and more insecure, I felt the need to compete with others in order to validate my self-image. While those feelings and emotions are not completely eradicated (nor do I think they ever will be), I’ve come to the conclusion that exclusively competing with others is unfulfilling and ultimately unhealthy. Rather than utilizing self-improvement as a way to be better than other people, it is far more engaging and rewarding to make a game of beating myself. Only once I realized that I am my fiercest competitor did I learn to love the process of self-improvement.
I love numbers and statistics. As such, I try to “gamify” the process of setting and achieving goals. This makes the process both quantifiable and enjoyable. It is a truly rewarding thing to look back and measure growth on a yearly, monthly and daily basis. The process of achieving goals and then increasing expectations has forced me to achieve larger goals in less time. My focus on incremental improvement caused me to adopt the “5% a day philosophy.”
The 5% a Day Philosophy
In order to achieve more output or put in more quality practice, the key is to form a baseline of productivity and to beat the number by 5% every day. You might be saying to yourself, “this is a rather obvious concept. By doing more I will accomplish more. No sh*t” and I completely agree with you. But the concept’s efficacy is not due to its innovative nature. The power of the concept is that it forces you to constantly evaluate, measure and assess your progress on a daily basis. In the event that you are doing all the right things and not achieving your goals, you can make the necessary adjustments to improve.
I’ll share two ways that I implement this philosophy on a daily basis to show how I approach incremental improvement. Hopefully this will help you adapt my methodology to your own goals and values so that you can accomplish more in the areas that you care about.
Challenge #1: What’s the most amount of calories that I can burn on the treadmill in 20 minutes?
Path to Improvement: On the first day, I form my baseline, say 200 calories. The next day I will increase the amount of calories burned in 20 minutes by 5%. I do this by marginally increasing both the speed and incline at a slow yet imperceptible pace. For example, I do treadmill work like the following:
Minute 1 at 5.5 mph and 2.0% incline
Minute 2 at 5.7 mph and 2.5% incline
Minute 3 at 6.0 mph and 3.0% incline
Minute 4 at 6.5 mph and 3.5% incline
Increase until you begin to either move too fast or feel exhausted, then go back to 5.5 mph and 2.0% and start again.
I like this method because I feel like I am slowly ramping up and must be mentally engaged so that I can monitor my increases. Once you have established your baseline on the first day, your goals will be structured like so:
Monday: 200 Calories
Tuesday: 210 Calories
Wednesday: 220.5 Calories
Thursday: 231 Calories
Etc.
**(Calculation was powered by Microsoft Excel 2010™)
If for some reason you fall short of the 5% increase, just use the amount of calories you burned that day to serve as your new baseline. You can then resume your 5% improvement the next day.
Challenge #2: How many minutes a day can I read?
Path to Improvement: With reading, I am more concerned with maximizing the time amount of time I spend reading as opposed to maximizing the amount of pages that I read. This is because some books take more concentration and deliberate thought than others. In order to find/create more time for reading, I start by allocating times that I will read on a daily basis. For example:
Read at home from 5:15 am - 5: 45 am
Read on the commute to work from 7:45 am - 8:30 am
Read at lunch from 12:00 pm - 12:15 pm
Read on the bus home from work 6:30 pm - 7:20 pm
Read before bed from 8:30 pm - 9:30 pm
It is a hard balancing act to find time for work, writing, exercising and reading, so I am forced to be very deliberate about how I spend my time. In order to find more reading time, I have to be ruthless in cutting out activities that don’t involve improving my education. This could mean reading on my lunch break as opposed to listening to music or choosing not to watch Netflix before bed. If I am ever at the point that I cannot read an extra 5% a day - meaning that I am literally utilizing every minute of the day to improve myself (this is impossible to do) - I will adjust my goal to be more applicable and realistic.
Concluding Note
You never actualize your own potential by competing with others. I truly believe that people who only compete with others are robbing themselves of the opportunity to achieve their full potential. What happens when you are ahead of everyone else in a given field while only utilizing 75% of your capabilities? When you compete against yourself, your potential for growth and achievement is unlimited. It is only you who knows when you’ve given an activity all of your focus, attention and effort. Seeing as only you know what your true limits are, you should try to find and exceed that limit every day.
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