The 1% Rule

Time to start achieving your goals... 1% at a time 🌟

Identifying what your goals are can be a difficult task in itself. You, like many others, may feel unsure about where you want to focus your energy and what you want to achieve. Then once you finally feel like you have managed to identify what it is you want and determined how this can be transformed into an achievable goal, these goals can often feel impossible to attain. This is where the 1% rule comes in👆

👉 What is the 1% rule? The 1% rule is an excellent behavioural change technique that can make achieving your goals easier and the path to success more manageable. The best thing about it is it’s something you can implement in your life and see measurable results. The 1% rule involves you purposefully choosing to do something each day that will get you 1% closer to achieving your ultimate goal 💫

👉 The 1% rule can be applied to all areas of your life. For example, you may want to progress at work, so you might decide in order to do this you need to improve your knowledge base. Therefore, you read a journal article about something related to your area of work. This is you actively improving your chances of achieving your goal 💫

❇️ Choosing to do something each day that brings you 1% closer to your goal is an achievement in its own right❇️

Sometimes your goals can feel impossible to achieve and you can begin to feel stressed and overwhelmed. This could be because you're focusing all your energy on the end goal instead of focusing on the smaller milestones you need to complete beforehand. These feelings can then reduce your motivation and leave you feeling negative about the steps you need to take to attain your goal. This can result in you abandoning your goal altogether ❌

👉 1% Rule Example: John’s lifestyle involves him often ordering take-out food to avoid cooking, as he is not confident with his cooking ability. John isn’t sure about the type of food he needs to fuel his body and often skips meals and indulges in unhealthy snacks. John also drinks wine most evenings to unwind. John never goes to the gym nor does any form of exercise at home and always drives or uses public transport when he needs to get somewhere. But John has decided he wants to make a change, he wants to lose weight, get fit and become the healthiest version of himself. John identified all of his unhealthy behaviours and decided to eliminate them all. He decided he would no longer have take-outs and skip meals but instead freshly cook and have three meals a day. John also decided to stop drinking wine and to stop eating unhealthy snacks. John enrolled at his local gym and decided he was going to go every day. This complete lifestyle overhaul began with John feeling great. He felt as if his ultimate goal was now clearly in sight. But John took on too much. This eventually resulted in John feeling negative about achieving his goal. John felt stressed and anxious. He became overwhelmed, but he believed this complete lifestyle overhaul was the only way to achieve his goal. However, John became too overwhelmed and then unmotivated. This led to him believing achieving his goal was not possible so abandoned it completely.

Mary also wants to become the healthiest version of herself and get fit. Similar to John, Mary has multiple unhealthy behaviours which require changing for her to achieve her end goal. However, Mary realises that for her to achieve her goal in a manner that is comfortable and doesn’t result in her feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious, she needs to commit to slow and steady progress. Mary decided each day she will behave in a way that makes her 1% closer to achieving her end goal. So, on the first day, Mary decides to walk to work instead of driving. On the second day, Mary explored different recipes that she could use to meal prep for the following week. On the third day, Mary walked to work and she also decided to not drink any wine that evening. These behavioural changes may seem small, but they begin to add up. Each day she is making small positive changes that make her 1% closer to attaining her end goal. Mary feels in control and doesn’t become overwhelmed.

Although Mary may appear to be taking the “slow” route, every day she is becoming 1% closer to her goal. Mary will eventually reach her goal and she will have maintained a healthy balance. John may have appeared to be doing everything right from the very moment he decided on his goal but this resulted in him abandoning his goal and feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious.

✍️ 1% Exercise:

✍️ Have a think about your personal goals. What would you like to work towards achieving? This can be quite a difficult task so just take your time to figure your goals out. ✍️ After you’ve taken some time to consider what goals you would like to attain, choose the goal that is most important to you ✍️ Now you need to break that goal down into bitesize chunks. Rather than focusing on the end goal, consider the different milestones that you need to achieve that make up the end goal. ✍️ Consider the things you need to do to achieve these milestones and ultimately your end goal ✍️ Brainstorm how you can give 1% each day to achieve your goal.

❇️ When you have decided on a goal you want to work towards, you must recognise consistency is key. This is because initially you might see rapid progress and that’s exciting, it’s motivating. But this may then slow down. This is when the 1% rule becomes super important. You have to keep progressing towards your goal by 1% even when you aren’t seeing the results you’d hoped for. Eventually, this consistency and determination can result in you attaining your goal ❇️

👉 If you would like help with working out how to achieve your goals, Happio can help! 🤗 💫