We've all seen the "tiny gains post". How if you get one percent better each day for one year, you’ll end up thirty-seven times better by the time you’re done."

Well......

First of all, 1% isn't 'tiny'. I know a few bankers who'd sacrifice their first born for a daily increment of 1% on their portfolio. After all, how many bankers do you know have a 37x return on anything over a year.

Secondly, getting 1% better everyday is not possible. Just getting better everyday is not possible.

If you train in cycling, improving your speed by 7% every week is a ridiculously impossible goal. In cycling we measure power output, so if you improve 1% everyday, no matter where you start from -- you'll be out-sprinting Mark Cavendish within a year.

So forget 1% everyday.

1% sounds small -- but doing it everyday puts is a fairy-tale. That said.... the idea that making small consistent gains instead of large but inconsistent improvements is a good idea.

After all, big gains only happen on the beginner end of the skill spectrum. If you've never run before, then a proper training regiment is going to vastly improve your performance -- and quickly.

As you get faster, the those additional gains are going to be smaller. It's diminishing returns.

I personally think, this is why we have the Dunning Kruger effect -- when you're a beginner you see big gains initially, and you extrapolate those gains over time, thinking you'll be much better and much faster than realistically possible. However, with every improvement -- the next increment of gains get smaller and smaller for the same effort or time.

So celebrating consistent small gains is the real key to success -- except it's missing one key ingredient.

Dealing with setbacks!!

We all live in the real-world where setbacks occur. You're training for some large goal, and halfway through (or anytime through) you get sick, or your kids get sick, of you go for a long vacation and training stops. Then when you come back, it's hard to restart with momentum -- and worse you've lost some gains. You're worse off now than you were 3-4 weeks ago, and sometimes that loss is much more than you thought it would be.

Maybe you're back to where you were 6 months ago -- sometimes even worse.

The 'secret' is of course to keep on chugging. Consistency in the face of inconsistent setbacks is the most important criteria for success. Every end of year, I go for a long break back to my Family home -- and when I get back my cycling is slower, my running is slower, my chess is worse, and I'm quite sure even my coding/architecture skills take a hit. The goal is to come back and keep chugging -- knowing that it's only a matter of time before you regain all you've lost and then some.

That's why I hate the "1% better" crowd. It's not addressing the real issue -- which is dealing with setbacks. Anyone would take a 1% better increment everyday -- but you've gotta tough it out through the valleys of setbacks to see real gains.

What we want to happen is this:

What actually happens looks more like a side profile of a mountain range, as long as it moves in the right direction, we're making progress: