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The Small Things Add Up
Leaders,
Relationships, Trust, Success isn’t something that just happens. It’s the result of consistently and authentically applying yourself every single day.
Imagine when you started your first job, you probably failed and made a bunch of errors and lacked confidence, but over time you learned from your mistakes, adopted feedback, and got better and better. It wasn’t a big leap, it was lots of small steps.
If you want to get good at anything you need to turn up and try every single day. Repetition is the mother of skill.
It’s safe to say improvement never happens overnight, and there won’t be any particular day that makes you good. It’s the consistency of turning up and the accumulation of the small efforts over a period of time that will help you establish the skills, competency, and belief in yourself.
A great story that depicts the importance of small steps is when Dave Brailsford was hired in 2003 as Performance Director of the British Cycling team.
Just five years after taking over the British Cycling team dominated the road and track cycling events at the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, where they won an astounding 60 percent of the gold medals available.
Four years later, when the Olympic Games came to London, the Brits raised the bar as they set nine Olympic records and seven world records.
Dave’s philosophy? Marginal Gains.
“The Marginal Gains Theory is concerned with small incremental improvements in any process, which, when added together, make a significant improvement.”
He had a relentless pursuit of finding the tiny margins of improvement in everything he and his team did, and looked to improve them every single day.
“The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of, that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”
Try this: Look at your own personal development and try every day to improve by 1%. That might involve reading books, developing your soft skills, watching Ted Talks, or even doing some uncomfortable where you learn more about yourself.
You may think that 1% is a tiny improvement and that’s not going to make a lot of difference. But, these small daily occurrences add up to significant upgrades and progress when you consistently apply them day in day out.
What could you improve on by 1% today?
All the best
David
Resources Of The Week
Book - Leadership: Plain and Simple by Steve Radcliffe. Great book which carries on the theme of this newsletter why it’s so important to establish strong relationships with your team. Based on Leadership FED framework. Future, Engage, Deliver.
Blog Article - Leading by Example. Mindtools is a fantastic resource for all employees. There are loads of resources for leaders to help develop their own competencies. Bookmark!
YouTube - Evan Carmichael Confidence Series - Evan put together a series of daily confidence-building videos from celebrities to motivational speakers delivered via YouTube directly to your inbox every day. 254 days to Unstoppable Confidence.
Quote of the Week
“Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out”- Robert Collier
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