The 1% Advantage

Napoleon Hill, in his book the Law of Success, spoke about the concept of Service.  He felt that your personal level of success would be driven by your ability to help others get ahead.  Really, he was speaking about the need to 'over-deliver'. 

"The importance of rendering more service and better service than that for which one is paid"

We often hear about the need to 'go the extra mile', the need to 'over-deliver' on our promises to others in order to stand-out and differentiate ourselves.  However, for many of us, we are already struggling to keep up with everything on our plates, juggling already too-busy schedules and workloads.  How then, could we possibly consider going a mile beyond what we are already struggling to produce?

In short... we can't.  But... we can make the goal a little more realistic, a little more 'doable'.  Instead of considering an 'extra' mile, a 100% increase in our output (yep... not very realistic!) consider instead simply doing/giving/being 1% more.  1%.  That's it!  Think of the beauty and simplicity of that.  We could all likely manage to do 1% more, to give just 1% more effort and focus and time to a task. 

On its own, that 1% might not sound very significant.  However, look at it from its cumulative effect.  Consider... if you did just 1% more per day, for the next month, how much more would you have accomplished and delivered?  Would that increase in output be enough to have differentiated and distinguished you from your competition?  Quite likely.  So many people are under-delivering that increasing our output by only 1% definitely gives us the edge.

Think about the momentum created by that 1% advantage. When we take on a task that's too large for us, we often become overwhelmed by it all and stop taking action, believing that we'll never be able to achieve it.  However, focusing on just 1% improvement each day - that's achievable.  That's doable, and that allows us to rack up success on success rather than failure.  For most of us, that daily positive reinforcement would not only be welcome... it would be invigorating and inspiring.  It would spur us to find ways to give 1% more tomorrow and the tomorrows that follow.

Think... if you grew just 1% per day for the next month... would you even recognise yourself and what you've achieved?  How would you feel about yourself and your life after that month?  Here's my challenge to each of you...  Do 1% more tomorrow.  1% better, 1% extra.  Just 1%.  See how you feel at the end of the day... could you give just 1% more the following day?  Build up the momentum and the power of the effect of accumulation of those 1%'s over time (it's sort of like compound interest!). 

And then... have a totally wild and crazy day where you challenge yourself to double it.  Yep... every so often be so wild, so bold, so daring... as to go for 2%. 

Double-dog dare ya!