Tiny Gains, Maximum Performance

William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.

William “Bud” Hart, of Haverhill, shares “Success Principles”—ideas for living a greater, better and more accomplished life, and building habits that stick. He also coaches clients to incorporate strategies for boosting their mental and physical performance during everyday living.

Whether you believe it or not you are always performing. At work, at home, with customers, clients, family, friends, every interaction with people moves you forward or backwards, there is no in between. I like to remind myself that consciously making tiny gains to enrich my relations with others is worthwhile and meaningful, even when there is nothing grand, visible, or outstanding that people might notice and talk about.

The Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said, “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step” (then another, and another and another).

The next time you see a particularly well poised, clear thinking, effective person remind yourself that nobody is born that way. A successful life is the product of many small steps, a great deal of learning, years of effort, some worries, sleepless nights, trade-offs, setbacks, sometimes having to listen and overcome demoralizing (seemingly overnight) success stories of other people. And with it all find a way every day to be indispensable.

In 2010, Dave Brailsford, performance director for Team Sky (Great Britain’s professional cycling team) championed a philosophy of “marginal gains” for British cycling. The whole idea was to analyze and break down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike. Then improve it all by 1 percent and you will make significant progress toward winning when you put them all together.

The result of his philosophy, in 2012, Team Sky rider Sir Bradley Wiggins became the first British cyclist to win the Tour de France. That same year, Brailsford coached the British cycling team at the 2012 Olympic Games and dominated the competition by winning 70 percent of the gold medals available. In 2013, Team Sky repeated their feat by winning the Tour de France again, this time with rider Chris Froome.

Dave Brailsford’s dedication is a reminder. The person determined to achieve maximum success learns the principle that progress is made one tiny gain at a time. It’s the step by step, day by day accumulation of disciplined performance enrichment that brings about the accomplishment of goals .

I am not sure who said it, but a simple way to remember this principle of tiny gains is to coin the well known phrase, “By the yard gains are hard, by the inch they’re a cinch.”

William “Bud” Hart is a certified “Mindset” Coach, Accountability Partner and Business Consultant. Founder of Hart Group, www.hartgroupma.com.