The 1% Improvement Fallacy

Before I start off, I want to make it clear that I am just putting it out into the world what I think.

The Hack

In the age of the Internet, there is no doubt that everyone must have heard of the following self-improvement “hack”.

If you get one percent better each day for one year, you will be thirty seven times better at the end of the year.

-a dozen self-help books / websites

Basically, this means all you need to do is improve by 1% everyday for a year and the results would then compound. This would equal to about 37 times better than when you started off. This calculation can be better understood from the following.

Let’s say S is your starting sate.

That’s a staggering difference, isn’t it. Just 1% improvement per day gets you 37 times better in 365 days (3778%).

Contrast that with a degradation of 1% everyday would leave you at 2.5% of your initial state.

This is so obvious and seems achievable. What’s 1% of anything? So puny!

An Example – Running

Let’s say today is Day 1 and I want to improve my long distance running ability. I can run about 1 km without passing out. From the theory above, I should be able to run about 37 km by the end of the year. That’s almost a full marathon.

By Day 2, I’ll have to run 1% more. This is 1 km and 10 meters. That’s nothing!

Day 3, I’ll have to hit 1 km and 20 meters.

Day 4, you get the idea…

This looks like a joke. The hack is giving me laughable goals for each day. I guess, this is the core of the hack. It’s not asking us to move mountains. It’s asking us to look at the problem one-step at a time.

Oftentimes, we get cold feet or anxious thinking of what’s to come. This is a reminder that time can be our greatest ally if used properly. With planning, it goes to show nothing should be impossible. All it takes is for us to do that 1% extra each time we try.

Where’s the fallacy

When presented like this, the hack seems amazing. The flaw in the thinking becomes apparent if we take another example.

The above example looked amazing by the mere fact that the starting state was poor to begin with. We started with a Day 1 goal of only 1 km. What if you are a routine runner and can do a 10 km run without breaking a sweat (I sure do know guys who run 10 km as if it’s a jog in the park).

Day 2: Improvement of 1% of 10 km = 10 km and 100 meters. That’s okay.

And by day 365, you are running 374 km!

What I mean to point out is simple. The “hack” is practical only for beginners / those starting out where the 1% gains stay in the realm of reality. The “gains” usually lose meaning once you have reached a mid-level proficiency in your chosen field of specialisation.

Who’s to say, maybe the pros don’t need self-improvement hacks to begin with.

I do not mean to discourage. Rather, I am motivated by this 1% per day improvement. It is definitely a perfect place to start whatever that you are planning to do. However, we all peak sooner or later and one cannot sustain that 1% forever.