1% at a time

· 284 words · 2 minute read

I heard a talk a couple or weeks ago at my church’s semiannual conference that I really liked. It was called One Percent Better, and the name really says it all.

The speaker, Michael A. Dunn, talked about how extremely manageable 1% changes can add up to be a huge benefit over time.

My wife and I have been trying this principle out over the last few weeks. I wanted to start with something simple, so I started with something that How Christlike identified as a weak point: praying twice a day. Nothing more than that. But just that tiny 1% had an immediate snowball effect. Not only did I pray more often, but they became much more sincere. I started reading scriptures every day, which wasn’t even (and still isn’t) a goal of mine.

That’s just one example, but the way a tiny change makes a big difference was amazing. This week my wife and I started doing meditative breathing and visualization for five minutes before bed and I already feel like my sleep has improved because of it. It didn’t take a huge change to habits and routine, just five minutes.

Today after reading a post from a blog we follow were going to start a small change of taking a 15 minute walk every day to see what improvements it makes to our fitness. I’m rather optimistic. We’ve also talked about how we can apply this literally to our finances, and I’ll write about that more if we actually decide to do it.

Overall, I think the biggest benefit is the feeling as momentum builds. It’s exciting and it just drives me even farther forward, one tiny step at a time.

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