Professional Improvement: Rule 1.01 vs. The Launch Angle

Each year, many of us set personal improvement goals. What many don’t realize is that those who consistently focus on IMPROVING, rather than OPTIMIZING on their existing skills, are more successful in the long run.

As we approach the end of October, I couldn’t help but think how fast 2019 is passing and 2020 is approaching. With ten months down, and 2 to go, I’ve been thinking of ways to simply explain how incremental differences over time can add up to significant change. I have come up with two: “Rule 1.01” and “The Launch Angle”. They both demonstrate that a little extra effort applied daily, matters.

Rule 1.01 suggests that if you DO 1% more than someone else, every day, then you will have done 1% more than the other person after 365, or any number of days. For example, if everyone else makes 100 items/day and you make 101, at the end of the year you will have made 365 more items. However, if you IMPROVE by 1% each day, you will have exceeded the other person by approximately 3800% after 365 days. How is that so? Because 1.01 to the power of 365 = 37.8, rounded to the nearest tenth. So, instead of making 365, you will have made 3,778 more items. That’s the beauty of compound interest.

The impact of incremental change is even more pronounced if we do 1% less/day because the Rule of .99, which demonstrates that .99 to the power of 365 = .03. So. at the end of year you are left with crumbs.

The second way of thinking about the power of incremental change is to think about the beginning of 2019 as the launch of your personal spaceship. There are so many little things that need to be considered and lots of calculations to make, including fuel consumption and the effects of gravity. But the most important determinant of success or failure of your mission is probably “The Launch Angle”. If your angle is wrong by even the smallest degree, you will miss your target. Why is this so? As your distance over time increases, so does the distance between the arms of your angle.  As with a NASA calculation, a seemingly tiny and insignificant error can make a huge spacecraft miss its target.

So, in these last 2 months of the year, as we begin the preparations to close out this year and begin next year strong, which approach is helpful to you:  the Rule of 1.01 or The Launch Angle? Godspeed!