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🏷️ Categories: Continuous improvement, Deliberate practice.
For nearly a hundred years, British cycling was nothing.
It was not a benchmark for anyone, nor even a threatening rival. Its results were so disappointing that some manufacturers did not even want to sell them bikes, for fear that their brand would become associated with failure (Moore, 2014). And then a coach appeared with an idea that, at first, sounded far too small to change anything.
The goal was not to obsess over winning.
The goal was to obsess over improving, even if only a little. By 1%.
A 1% improvement in training.
A 1% improvement in aerodynamics.
A 1% improvement in recovery.
A 1% improvement in rest.
A 1% improvement in nutrition.
Nothing spectacular on its own, really. And yet, when you put together many small improvements, something starts to change on a large scale. Dave Brailsford understood that performance was not just one thing. It was a fabric woven from details. So he broke cycling down into dozens of parts and set out to improve each one by 1%.
And it worked.
In just a few years, the British team went from irrelevance to dominating the Olympic Games and claiming a place in cycling history that had once seemed impossible.
Quite a transformation, right?
I really like this idea because it says something we too easily forget: almost nothing changes all at once, no matter how hard we try to speed everything up.
It is enough to refine one detail by 1%.
And then do it again.
And then again.
Patience.
The problem with always looking too far ahead
I think that many times we measure progress in the cruelest possible way:
By looking forward.
We ask ourselves:
Will I manage to save 10,000 euros this year?
Will I lose those 10 kilos before summer?
Will I manage to publish my book this year?
Will I finally get to where I want to be?
And there is nothing wrong with having goals. Quite the opposite. It is a natural part of being human, and they give us direction in life. The problem is that they can also become a very effective way of living in a state of lack. Because when you only measure the distance between yourself and the ideal, it always seems like something is missing. It always seems like it is not enough.
That is why I like another way of measuring so much better.
Measure backward.
Measuring backward
Every day I sit down at the computer and write down a few things about my writing.
New subscribers, the number of reads each text gets, the topics I wrote about, the number of times an article was shared. It does not take me long, maybe five minutes. But those five minutes give me something very valuable in return: a signal.
They show me whether I am moving forward or not.
They help me see whether something is growing, whether it has stalled, whether something needs attention.
I do not look at an abstract and distant goal, because that drains my motivation. I enjoy measuring recent reality. I look at what happened this week, what happened this month. What is changing, even if slowly. And then I adjust for the following week.
That is measuring backward.
I do something similar with my calisthenics training. Every day I write down how many repetitions I did, how I felt, how much I weighed that week. With that data, I aim to improve just a little compared with my past self. It is enough for me to rise by 1%.
I think that is where the difference lies.
When you use recent data, you can make beautiful adjustments toward your future. That is why, if you compare yourself with a version of yourself from two years ago, or with a huge goal that still feels far away, it is very easy to lose the sense of daily movement.
When you measure your progress, do not ask only how much is left before you arrive.
Ask yourself: what can I improve by 1% compared with last week?
Something that small is enough.
The satisfaction of measuring backward
There is something curious that I discovered almost by accident: I like measuring.
I think I like it because measuring reduces chaos. In psychology, self-regulation theory explains this. Measuring makes us feel that we have things under control. It reminds you that you are not drifting, that you know where you are going. When you track something, you no longer depend on vague impressions to guess how you are doing. You can see it.
And seeing progress, even small progress, is satisfying.
People sometimes ask me whether I get tired of writing. I tell them no, I get tired when I do not write. By measuring the path you have already traveled, you begin to find joy in the process. I have learned that it is more satisfying to know that you are moving forward in what you love than to remind yourself every day of everything you still lack and everything you are not yet.
The journey matters more than the destination.
How to apply it
Everyone knows this: to change your results, you have to change your actions.
Although that has never been the hard part. The hard part is knowing what to do and how to do it.
Here we can learn a lot from this cycling coach. Dave Brailsford would say that to achieve it, you need to understand the factors that make up the thing you want to improve. Then, you need to use metrics for your practice. Finally, you have to identify ways to improve each of those factors by 1%.
An improvement small enough that it does not create friction in your daily life. Subtle.
For example:
If you want to write more, measure your actual output. Did you write 300 words a day last week? Then try to reach 325 this week.
If you want to read more, review your recent pace. Did you read 10 pages a day last week? Set yourself the goal of reading 11 this week.
If you want to save money, look at your spending. Did you spend 120 euros on eating out last week? Try to bring it down to 110 this week.
If you want to study more consistently, review your focused study time. Did you only study 4 hours in total last week? Try to reach 4 this week.
If you want to improve your diet, observe one specific behavior. Did you eat vegetables in only 3 meals last week? Try including them in 4 meals this week.
If you want to walk more, measure your steps. Did you average 6,000 steps a day last week? Increase it to 6,200 this week.
That is all.
Measure backward.
Look at your past.
And improve so subtly that the change feels possible.
Not heroic.
Possible.
Want to learn more? Here are 3 related ideas to go deeper:
✍️ Your turn: What specific metric could you start tracking today to gain clarity about your progress?
💭 Quote of the day: “If you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1%, you would get a huge increase when you put it all together.” — Dave Brailsford, in British Cycling (URL)
See you next time! 👋
References 📚
Moore, R. (2014). Mastermind: How Dave Brailsford Reinvented the Wheel.
There's a saying that is attributed to Abdul-Baha, of the Baha'i Fait. "Little by little, day by day." It fits in with your article and is something I try to remember.