The Aggregate of Marginal Gains
Marginal gains.
They seem to go nowhere fast.
But didn't we learn a valuable lesson, in our very earliest years, about the tortoise and the hare?
The Tortoise always wins.
Why???
Marginal gains and the aggregate or combination and build up of taking those small but consistent steps, over and over and over.
I've just finished James Clear's book Atomic Habits.
There is nothing earth-shattering in there, in fact, some of his strategies parallel some of my own that I've discovered over years of trying to solidify desired habits.
But that is where the treasure of this book really shines through....in the simplicity of it. There is an ease of application of the ideas and strategies and a sheer common-sense about it all...the "common" sense that often isn't so common.
It is wonderful to have a 'master plan', a 'new idea' and a 'major upheaval', but where will the plan, idea and major change be in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years?
What if instead there is a micro-plan, an old and solid idea and a change that is so slight that it nearly can't fail? What if we just keep going?
Where are things then in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years?
If we jump into a new goal all bright-eyed and filled with hope of success and enthusiasm and generate a flurry of activity only to fade away in a month or two, where does that leave us?
Compare that to the slow and steady firmly adopted new HABIT that accrues over time. At the end of that same two months that burnt out our flurry of enthusiasm, we instead have a steady accumulation of PROGRESS and progress is the key to making any habit stick.
James talks about working with "just manageable difficulty" as a way to progress. Too easy and a task becomes boring. Too difficult and we get frustrated. He calls it the Goldilocks rule.
https://jamesclear.com/?s=goldilocks
We need to find that level of challenge that is both doable and challenging at the same time. And this is a target that will, usually, change, so we have to be continually mindful. What worked one week might not work the next. We need to SLOWLY advance the target and constantly find ways to s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
https://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains
They seem to go nowhere fast.
But didn't we learn a valuable lesson, in our very earliest years, about the tortoise and the hare?
The Tortoise always wins.
Why???
Marginal gains and the aggregate or combination and build up of taking those small but consistent steps, over and over and over.
I've just finished James Clear's book Atomic Habits.
There is nothing earth-shattering in there, in fact, some of his strategies parallel some of my own that I've discovered over years of trying to solidify desired habits.
But that is where the treasure of this book really shines through....in the simplicity of it. There is an ease of application of the ideas and strategies and a sheer common-sense about it all...the "common" sense that often isn't so common.
It is wonderful to have a 'master plan', a 'new idea' and a 'major upheaval', but where will the plan, idea and major change be in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years?
What if instead there is a micro-plan, an old and solid idea and a change that is so slight that it nearly can't fail? What if we just keep going?
Where are things then in 2 weeks, 2 months, 2 years?
If we jump into a new goal all bright-eyed and filled with hope of success and enthusiasm and generate a flurry of activity only to fade away in a month or two, where does that leave us?
Compare that to the slow and steady firmly adopted new HABIT that accrues over time. At the end of that same two months that burnt out our flurry of enthusiasm, we instead have a steady accumulation of PROGRESS and progress is the key to making any habit stick.
James talks about working with "just manageable difficulty" as a way to progress. Too easy and a task becomes boring. Too difficult and we get frustrated. He calls it the Goldilocks rule.
https://jamesclear.com/?s=goldilocks
We need to find that level of challenge that is both doable and challenging at the same time. And this is a target that will, usually, change, so we have to be continually mindful. What worked one week might not work the next. We need to SLOWLY advance the target and constantly find ways to s-t-r-e-t-c-h.
https://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains
If we can get good, REALLY good, at working with these concepts of being content with the small achievements and in recognizing the small but steady gains, there is no area that can't be taken on and improvement gained in and that sounds pretty good to me.
Working to make good habits, habitual.
Sue
(From 2019)
Working to make good habits, habitual.
Sue
(From 2019)
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