NEW YORK–You have big, ambitious goals and even bigger dreams. But how do you get from where you are now to making those dreams come true? The answer may surprise you, according to one person.
The surprise? Thomas Oppong says it’s that by aiming for just a 1% improvement, the big improvements will take place.
Oppong, founder of AllTopStartups, published his counterintuitive insight in an essay on Medium and Quartz that's gotten lots of attention on social media, noted Minda Zetlin, the co-author of “The Geek Gap.”
In that essay, Zetlin noted Oppong argues for using the practice of Kaizen, or continuous improvement, which was invented in the Depression-era U.S. and perfected at Toyota in Japan. But instead of using it only to continuously improve our workplaces or our jobs, Oppong suggests Kaizen as a powerful approach for improving ourselves.
“Why is Kaizen so effective as a means of personal improvement?” asked Zetlin in a piece that appeared on Inc.com. “To answer that question, consider the people you know with big ambitions. If they're anything like the people I know, they take one of two approaches. One group loves to talk about the impressive things they plan to accomplish: Start a company, run a marathon, lose 50 pounds, write a book. They're long on visions of a better future but short on details about how to get from here to there.
‘Something Much More Important’
“The second group may or may not have grand visions of the future, but they do know a lot about the steps that will get them closer to where they want to go,” Zetlin continued. “Maybe they've decided to write one page every day, starting today. Maybe they are going to launch a small side hustle as a first step toward entrepreneurship, and--starting today--they're building a website to promote their products or services. These are people who may have big ambitions but they also have something much more important--a plan of action that will begin today and continue tomorrow and the next day, and the next, until they reach those big goals, or else change those goals based on what they learn while pursuing them. Of the two groups, they're the ones who will actually accomplish big things.”
According to Zetlin, Kaizen is a “perfect tool” for the second approach, because it's all about the small things that can be done today rather than making grand plans for someday.
“Oppong argues for a simple, Kaizen-based approach to self-improvement: Aim for 1% improvement today, another 1% tomorrow, and so on,” wrote Zetlin, who quoted Oppong as stating, "Becoming 1% better every day is a simple, practical way to achieve big goals.
Three Things
According to Zetlin, continuous improvement will work if a person does three things and stick to them.
“First, begin with a goal for 1% improvement, whatever that might mean in the process you're trying to improve. Second, decide how often you're going to work toward that goal and stick with the plan, whatever it is,” stated Zetlin. “You can keep your grand goal, if you have one, in the back of your mind, but don't focus on it. Focus on achieving that 1% improvement. Once you've solidly accomplished that, pick your next 15 goal and keep going.”