Improve By 1% Everyday

“The Kaizen Philosophy assumes that our way of life – be it our working life, our social life, or our home life – deserves to be constantly improved.” – Masaaki Imai

Self improvement is hard. There are bad days where your best self seems impossibly far away. Exhaustion can cause a rude statement to blurt out. Stress can lead to poor health decisions. Self betterment is a process and the journey is not complete until you wave goodbye to the land of the living. Each day requires the effort to get up and do better than the previous day. The Japanese have the perfect word to sum this up: kaizen.

Kaizen is a combination of two Japanese words which roughly translate to “good change” and has its roots in the post-World War II Japanese manufacturing sector¹. The concept is centered around the idea that everything can be improved. Its foundation is based on respect for others during the improvement process, which is one reason the idea has become so prevalent in the business world. The ideology of continuous improvement translates perfectly into personal application as well². Evaluate yourself, look for ways to improve, do those things, repeat.

Don’t go and make a list of fifty things you would like to change. Not only is that not the point of kaizen, but it’s impractical. Focus on one or two things you would like to improve, then put energy into those everyday. Don’t get frustrated by bad days. When looking to improve by 1% per day, even if you mess up it, it’s not a major setback – just wake up the next morning and look towards a fresh 1% improvement day. Once you see significant progress, pick a new thing to improve. Rome was not built in a day, enjoy the journey.

Action: Pick one or two things you would like to improve and build them into your plan. Focus on improving them by 1% everyday. Reflect everyday on how your progress is going.

Further Reading:

1. Kaizen (continuous improvement)
2. The Practice Of Kaizen Will Help You Improve 1% Per Day And Lead To Amazing Long-Term Success