“Success is the sum of small changes repeated day in and day out” – Robert Collier

Summer of Sport

To me, summer always means sport, especially with Wimbledon and cricket in full swing. The Ashes Test matches (both series are still alive, baby!) are giving me a run of small heart attacks at the moment, but I still love it. I adore watching (or, in the case of cricket, listening); to witness the incredible feats people can accomplish in sport.

The physical prowess and innate talent aren’t what impress me the most, though. I’m more inspired by the results of focus, discipline, determination, and the thoughtful application of psychology and intelligent strategy.

1% Rule

The Tour De France is another summer spectacular - an incredible display of endurance and strength, with teams and individuals highly optimised and closely matched. The difference between winning and losing comes down to the tiniest margins. The world of cycling brings to mind an example of a competitive strategy that helped to find that edge: the 1% rule.

The concept of the 1% rule highlights how making small changes in multiple areas can significantly impact the overall outcome. This approach was cited as a critical factor in the rise of the British cycling team from mediocrity to dominance in past years, as highlighted in James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. The team considered every detail, making small adjustments to bike mechanics, fabrics, massage gels, pillows, and even the colour of the truck’s interior to detect dust. They achieved unbeatable success by recognising that even seemingly minor factors matter.

Listen to the Coach

This 1% idea came up again in my world in a work context. As a GP, I’ve had the opportunity to start working with health coaches. Martin, one of our new coaches, shared his list of ‘1% tasks’ with me when he gave a presentation.

Martin, a personal trainer by trade, knows that to achieve sustainable success in weight loss or other fitness goals, you need to make a dent in as many areas as possible and not just obsess over the obvious gyming and dieting. Instead, to be more effective, you should tackle each area with a 1% improvement mentality, including improving your sleep, stress, and substances.

Attention to detail

I see this principle mirrored in how my yoga asana practice evolved, and it may be one reason I love working with detail and precision alignment. Without realising, but with retrospection, the 1% change principle was undoubtedly one of the ways my progress accelerated.

What happened was not a result of deliberately implementing a 1% change strategy in the way one might do in competitive sports. But at some point, I stopped focusing on one specific restriction or pose and started to apply some long-needed diversification. You could call it a redistribution from 100% focus on one thing (say, flexibility) to 1% on many things. One example of a 1% change was a relatively easy decision: I got myself a decent sticky mat: a total game-changer. I also realised that I’m more of a morning yoga person and stopped forcing myself to practice after work - a small but meaningful change that improved my practice consistency.

With the body itself, I loosened my fixation on stretching. I attended to placement and proprioception on every body part in turn, slowly learning how to access muscle groups I didn’t know existed, experimenting with the feel of skin, and the balance of gripping and softening. I’d enjoy rotating my focus; maybe one day, the big toe, the next, the head and neck position.

Just as significantly, 1%s extended beyond the body to the places that had long been neglected. 1% more recognition of mind and behaviours: pausing, doing less and being kind, letting go, resting and observing the breath: different approaches, different poses, no part of me to be missed out in awareness or nurture. Bit by bit, piece by piece, maybe I was accessing 1% change everywhere I could.

Bit by Bit

It’s important to remember that tiny changes aren’t always perceptible, nor do they yield immediately impressive results. These changes can appear insignificant and even bypass your awareness altogether, but they can have an unbelievable impact when you add them up over time. In this case, a simple addition doesn’t quite encapsulate the equation: 1+1 doesn’t equal 2; it often amounts to far more.

You may have noticed fleeting moments during your yoga practice where you feel more centred or relaxed, or you may see a slight improvement in your breathing, strength, coordination or posture. While these moments come and go, consider how these efforts accrue to affect first your body-mind, bleed into the rest of your day, next integrate into your general resting state and then slowly alter your global well-being.

1% changes make a remarkable difference. The beauty of knowing this is that you don’t have to push yourself to the brink of exhaustion or burnout to get somewhere fast. By making even the smallest of changes, wherever we can, we can sustainably move towards breaching our own perceived limits. As the saying goes, “Success is the sum of small changes repeated day in and day out.”

So the next time you step onto your yoga mat, remember that even a 1% change contributes to transformation. Acknowledge the power of 1% and watch as your body, mind, and spirit transform bit by bit by bit.

Let’s practise.