Marginal Gains Aggregation

It is all too tempting to exaggerate the significance of a single defining moment while underestimating the value of making little everyday gains. We tend to mislead ourselves that huge success necessitates massive action. We put pressure on ourselves to make some earth-shattering improvement, whether it is losing weight, creating a business, publishing a book, winning a championship, or reaching any other objective.

Meanwhile, improving by 1% isn't really significant—in fact, it's barely noticeable—but it can be significantly more significant, especially in the long run. It's amazing how much of a difference a small improvement can make over time. Here's how the math works: if you improve by 1% every day for a year, you'll be 37 times better by the end. In contrast, if you get 1% worse every day for a year, you'll be virtually at zero. What begins as a tiny victory or a minor setback grows into much more.

At first, there isn't much of a difference between choosing a choice that is 1% better or 1% worse. However, as time passes, these minor gains or losses add up, and you suddenly find a very large gap between people who make slightly better decisions on a regular basis and those who don't. This is why minor decisions don't seem to make much of a difference at first but build up over time.

Setting a timeline to never miss twice can help to keep tiny mistakes from spinning out of control.