I had a friend recommend me a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear back in late 2021. Ever since, I consider it to be amongst the several books that have greatly inspired me. Although it is worth reading entirely, what struck me the most was the author’s statement on continuous improvement within one year illustrated through the following picture:
He also mentioned that:
In the beginning, there is basically no difference between making a choice that is 1 percent better or 1 percent 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.
If you get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done.
The Aim Of This Experiment
I became curious to read or watch online real life experiments of 1% improvement in anything for fun apart from the examples in the book. That further motivated me to become part of those examples and perhaps be an inspiring one. Thus, I decided to use this blog as a public experiment demonstrating a big picture of what 1% daily improvement within a year looks like. Granted, it started in April 2023, but I kept this approach even before I launched it. I am always learning and adding or removing something new to make it different than any day prior. The changes are never made just for the sake of changing, but with the intention of IMPROVING the blog. One of the most successful youtubers MrBeast even once mentioned something similar for content creators in an interview he did on the Lex Fridman Podcast:
A lot of people get into paralysis analysis and they will just sit there and plan their first video for three months. Any of you listening, your first 100 videos are not going to get any views period I can confidently say that. So for the average person like me who does not have a freak personality or a background in filmmaking, all you need to do is to make 100 videos and improve every time.
Indeed, my first posts or videos had no readers, videos or traffic whatsoever. Of course, only I as the administrator can truly witness its evolution. However, I can still demonstrate the blog’s progress through posts explaining genuinely how my life changed and show the metrics I track on Google Analytics. I will explain in these posts while providing proof whenever possible like graphs and pictures to showcase how my life changed in every way possible when making big or small decisions. I can’t show every changes such as correcting grammar mistakes, making better titles, gaining knowledge, changing themes or adding various post elements, because it is just impossible unless I screen record or stream my work and my life live online. Certainly, that would be the ultimate and undisputable proof for any skeptics, but that would require a separate kind of commitment which honestly, I would rather just redirect into my life or my blog. I wanted to recreate a progression similar to Joel Snape when he started learning the piano. He did not track any particular metric, but based on his videos, his progress is TANGILE and convincing enough.
What Does It Truly Mean To Improve By 1% Every Day?
This is hard to describe, because a single metric can not represent the absolute effect/value that a habit has over one’s life. You might be asking yourself: “What does 1 % improvement mean in blogging?” It certainly does not mean the following:
Day 1: I will publish one new post.
Day 2: I will publish two new posts.
Day 3: I will publish three new posts.
…
Nor does it mean the following:
Day 1: I will publish one new post of one paragraph.
Day 2: I will publish one new post of two paragraphs
Day 3: I will publish one new post of three paragraphs
…
And that is why my answer to that question is quite frankly “I do not know what it means either”. It is fundamentally very subjective and even my approach may not appear as true progress in the eyes of a more successful and experienced blogger let’s say. However, I am a strong believer in setting process and performance goals as I learned from the book Sport Psychology. Whatever those might be for any given day , as long as I can achieve them (or not and learn from the failure) , I count that as improvement. To give you an example, as soon as I launched the blog, my next goal was to write and publish a post, because I did not know how. Therefore, I looked online and as soon as I found the answer, I immediately wrote one and published it. Therefore, that goal was achieved and I improved! Of course, I try to accomplish as much as I can during the day, but that is just one example. A very important aspect about any process and performance goal I set is that I need an immediate action plan towards it. (More can be found on my review on Sport Psychology)
The Verdict
I will write a post one year after this blog was launched while referring to this one and explain what my life looks like at that point.
(Upcoming update on April 8th, 2024!)
So if you are curious to follow along, it first started like this:
and almost four months later as of July 21st 2023, it looked like this:
I must admit that I have not always been very religious about it and on some days I worked more than others. On one occasion for example, I had to get my computer fixed for almost an entire month which prevented me from making significant progress on the blog. However, I still made improvements in my life for example when making the decision to invest and many more which I can hardly mention all the time. Therefore, even if changes are not directly visible on the blog, I might be out there learning or promoting. Similarly, I might be organizing my files or taking care of anything else in my life. So expect progress to come on all fronts! This should be fun though and I can’t wait to show you all what will happen one year from now so stay tuned!!
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