Goals and Marginal Gains

Think back to this time last year...

Let's evaluate the last 12 months. For most of us the small subtle shifts we have made in our life are so imperceptible, that we forget the incremental impact they have. This is marginal gains, part of the mindset fundamentals section of our mental fitness course framework.

“The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improve it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.” - Dave Brailsford, Performance Director of The British Cycling Team

How do we take a 1 percent strategy and put this into action?

Some might argue that habits are more important than goals, why? Because the small changes combine over to have greater impact.

It is also important to remember these don't have to be massive changes - think on a smaller more manageable scale. In sales, there’s no race to the finish line, you will end up exhausted and frustrated with yourself. To truly make impactful change that stick for the long term, It's all about becoming the tortoise, not the hare.

Making the 1% changes

The key to making these habits stick is to not make them feel massively painful or too much of an uphill battle. Swapping that 2-minute drive to the shops, get up and go for a power walk. It may not seem like much but it's making that 1 % change, with this in your mindset it will encourage you to try walking again.

Switching to non-alcoholic beer on a Friday night may feel weird at first, but it’s an approach you can stick to for one day a week that makes a small incremental change to your health.

Starting half an hour of effective business development each day. That's 2.5 extra hours a week that combines to increased brand awareness and opportunites.

The 1% is simply about showing up.

If we want to become better at anything, we need to practice it. That means going to the gym when we don’t feel like it. Or committing to writing one thought-leadership piece per month. Push yourself to finish that presentation with two more slides.

It might even mean going outside of your comfort zone, but just a little. Something like asking your boss to take lead in a big sales pitch, we don't know until we try.

Making time for marginal gains

If you schedule the time into your diary, you’re much more likely to stick to it. You can even ‘habit stack’ to make sure this marginal gain is implemented. That means balancing out the pain of starting this new task with something that feels good to you.

For example, if you start eating salads for lunch, you could make sure you watch a funny video at the same time. That way your brain is distracted by the pleasure rather than the discomfort of the new 1%. Or you can find a really fascinating podcast to listen to on your daily walk.

Our brains often fall back into ‘hedonic adaptation, which essentially means that the buzz you get at the beginning wears off, so find a way to stick to your marginal gain habits by changing up the feeling associated with it.

Now would be a perfect time to make that shift and start working on that 1% we are entering a new year with new prospects.

When it comes to applying marginal gains, remember that small improvements = big results.