Reaching My Full Potential and How You Can TooSample

Lessons for Achieving a 1% Better Mindset

I would never claim to have invented the idea of gradual, persistent improvement or even 1 percent improvement. The concept has been around for a long time. But what I do claim credit for is how I applied it to helping my son, Chris, accomplish what most people thought impossible. Most of us are average, Chris was below average, and it is for us that 1% Better was designed.

Our daughter, Jacky, asked me to explain exactly what I meant by 1% Better. I answered by asking her who our educational and athletic systems of achievement were designed for. Were they for the most socially, intellectually, and athletically disadvantaged? Were they for the top 1 percent of the population in terms of talent, drive, opportunity, or some other measure? Or were they for the rest of us, the also-rans who comprise the vast majority of the population?

Jacky thought for a minute and answered the higher end of the rest of us. They are set up to serve the rest of us, the 99 percent who range from very talented and high achieving to subpar and low achieving. Our educational system is set up to sort the rest of us, taking us from one phase to another: from elementary school to middle school to high school to college and, finally, to a career. Similarly, our athletic systems are set up to create pathways to follow through youth sports programs that become more and more competitive and elite.

Now, imagine the effect this system would have on somebody of average ability, let alone somebody like Chris. They’re trying to compete with a group of people who intellectually and physically are more advanced and are very likely to resign themselves to limiting what they believe they can achieve—to know their place in the great lineup of life. And they often learn this lesson early on in life, which dampens their motivation to push themselves harder. After eighteen years in those traditional systems, Chris had gotten nowhere because those systems weren’t designed to help him maximize his potential but to become dependent on those further up the ladder of traditional success.

I think that more of us can do better in school, sports, and life if we look outside traditional systems of education and sports. What if we reframed a system for those who don’t have the intellectual and physical capacity to compete in the current system? I emphasize the word compete because the key to the traditional system lies in competition: the traditional system is a zero-sum game in which everybody vies for a limited number of places. But what would happen if, instead of viewing competition as a zero-sum game of one against all, we viewed it as a game of me against myself? Me against my natural human instinct to push myself to keep getting better at something so I can reach my goals and dreams? I can tell you what happened when Chris and I reframed his approach from traditional to 1% Better: he went from being a couch potato who was forty pounds overweight and dealing with the extraordinary physical and intellectual challenges of living with Down syndrome to becoming an IRONMAN triathlete.

The key to understanding and using the 1% Better mindset in your own life is to recognize that it is, first and foremost, a mindset. The first thing I would do is to write down my dreams. Your dream is the first crucial step. Then, I would set goals. Of course, next, you need a plan with milestones and markers that you seek to hit. With Chris, we knew he had to prepare to go from running an Olympic triathlon in January to an IRONMAN triathlon in November. That enabled us to put markers in place leading up to the final goal. Goals are the means to realizing a dream. Goals are finite and subject to change. Dreams are endless and grow. When Chris achieved his goal of completing an IRONMAN triathlon, he created a new goal of competing in the IRONMAN World Championship. 

When you develop the ability to become 1% Better—to develop an achievement habit—you can apply it to anything you want. Each day, strive to be 1% better than you were the day before.

I knew from the beginning that God’s hand would be on Chris. I knew that Patty and I could trust our son to the Heavenly Father. Chris’s struggles and defeats would be victories in the hands of Jesus. He would give Chris the strength to compete and complete all that God has planned for him.

Respond

What are you facing today that will require the strength that comes from Jesus for you to complete?

List people in your life who need to know Jesus and His strength, grace, love, and salvation.

Prayer

Lord Jesus, You are my strength and my refuge. May I feel your presence today.