This Coach Improved Every Tiny Thing by 1 Percent and Here’s What Happened
by James Clear
In 2010, Dave Brailsford faced a
tough job.
No British cyclist had ever won
the Tour de France, but as the new General Manager and Performance Director for
Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team), that’s what Brailsford
was asked to do.
His approach was simple.
Brailsford believed in a concept
that he referred to as the “aggregation of marginal gains.” He explained it as
the “1 percent margin for improvement in everything you do.” His belief was
that if you improved every area related to cycling by just 1 percent, then
those small gains would add up to remarkable improvement.
They started by optimizing the
things you might expect: the nutrition of riders, their weekly training
program, the ergonomics of the bike seat, and the weight of the tires.
But Brailsford and his team didn’t
stop there. They searched for 1 percent improvements in tiny areas that were
overlooked by almost everyone else: discovering the pillow that offered the
best sleep and taking it with them to hotels, testing for the most effective
type of massage gel, and teaching riders the best way to wash their hands to
avoid infection. They searched for 1 percent improvements everywhere.
Brailsford believed that if they
could successfully execute this strategy, then Team Sky would be in a position
to win the Tour de France in five years time.
He was wrong. They won it in three
years.
In 2012, Team Sky rider Sir
Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France.
That same year, Brailsford coached the British cycling team at the 2012 Olympic
Games and dominated the competition by winning 70 percent of the gold medals
available.
In 2013, Team Sky repeated their
feat by winning the Tour de France again, this time with rider Chris Froome.
Many have referred to the British cycling feats in the Olympics and the Tour de
France over the past 10 years as the most successful run in modern cycling
history.
And now for the important
question: what can we learn from Brailsford’s approach?
The Aggregation of Marginal Gains
It’s so easy to overestimate the
importance of one defining moment and underestimate the value of making better
decisions on a daily basis.
Almost every habit that you have —
good or bad — is the result of many small decisions over time.
And yet, how easily we forget this
when we want to make a change.
So often we convince ourselves
that change is only meaningful if there is some large, visible outcome
associated with it. Whether it is losing weight, building a business, traveling
the world or any other goal, we often put pressure on ourselves to make some
earth-shattering improvement that everyone will talk about.
Meanwhile, improving by just 1
percent isn’t notable (and sometimes it isn’t even noticeable). But it can be just as meaningful,
especially in the long run.
And from what I can tell, this
pattern works the same way in reverse. (An aggregation of marginal losses, in
other words.) If you find yourself stuck with bad habits or poor results, it’s
usually not because something happened overnight. It’s the sum of many small
choices — a 1 percent decline here and there — that eventually leads to a
problem.
Inspiration for this image came
from a graphic in The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.
In the beginning, there is
basically no difference between making a choice that is 1% better or 1% worse.
(In other words, it won’t impact you very much today.) But as time goes on,
these small improvements or declines compound and you suddenly find a very big
gap between people who make slightly better decisions on a daily basis and
those who don’t. This is why small choices (“I’ll take a burger and fries”)
don’t make much of a difference at the time, but add up over the long-term.
On a related note, this is why I
love setting
a schedule for important things, planning for failure, and using the “never miss twice”
rule. I know that it’s not a big deal if I make a mistake or slip up on a
habit every now and then. It’s the compound effect of never getting back on
track that causes problems. By setting a schedule to never miss twice, you can
prevent simple errors from snowballing out of control.
The Bottom Line
Success is a few simple
disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in
judgment, repeated every day.
—Jim Rohn
—Jim Rohn
You probably won’t find yourself
in the Tour de France anytime soon, but the concept of aggregating marginal
gains can be useful all the same.
Most people love to talk about
success (and life in general) as an event. We talk about losing 50 pounds or
building a successful business or winning the Tour de France as if they are
events. But the truth is that most of the significant things in life aren’t
stand-alone events, but rather the sum of all the moments when we chose to do
things 1 percent better or 1 percent worse. Aggregating these marginal gains
makes a difference.
There is power in small wins and
slow gains. This is why average speed yields above average results. This is
why the
system is greater than the goal. This is why mastering
your habits is more important than achieving a certain outcome.
Where are the 1 percent
improvements in your life?
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