Become A One Percenter By Michele Demetriou
Michele Demetriou is the founder of Michele Demetriou Coaching and is a Certified Mindset and Life Coach. She works with clients on taking them from where they currently are in their lives to the life of their dreams.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY ESTHER LEE LEACH
After an unprecedented year that is now in the rearview mirror, 2021 has arrived. As we kicked 2020 to the curb last night, we woke this morning with anticipation of the possibilities that await us in this New Year. Fresh starts. Getting it right and achieving that goal that eluded us in the past year.
A New Year often begins with New Year's resolutions. We tend to go all-in and hard initially—surely our massive actions will result in incredible transformations.
But this is where we go wrong. We don't make these things habits. We aren't consistent. It's too hard. It's too much work. And we don't stick to our plan. And it becomes painfully evident that the massive initial action isn't the best way to get what we want. It's shifting—the small 1% shifts—the small actions that allow us to incorporate these new behaviors into our lives and becoming part of our identity.
To get lasting and sustained results, we have to start with small, incremental steps, and we don't see small as being important. It's going all out or nothing that will get us what we want. But that isn't true. It's the small daily efforts that bring us the goals that we haven't previously attained.
Have you ever watched a baby learn to walk? Waddle...one step...two steps. Fall. Get up. Fall. That baby has no evidence it can walk. The baby doesn't say to themselves, "I keep falling. I guess I'll always be a crawler." No! That baby gets up, walks, falls, walks more than it falls, and eventually becomes a walker—small, incremental steps. Much like the baby—getting up and trying again—consistently is what will get us to the end result that we most desire.
If your goal is to run a marathon in 2021 and you currently don't exercise, your brain will tell you that it's too hard and that walking will not possibly get you your end goal of running 26 miles and 385 yards—a marathon. You think you're not near your goal of running a marathon until maybe you can run 20 miles. You believe that those first few steps don't count—they don't make a difference.
But that's where we're wrong. Getting yourself dressed and out the door is the hard part. Walking that first mile is the hard part. Once you've done that, it's just rinse and repeat. Your goal isn't to run a marathon. Your real goal is to become a runner, and it's the work that you put in now—when you feel as though you're not making any progress—that makes running a marathon and becoming a runner possible a year from now. You get what you repeat.
This slight, 1% change in your daily habits—repeated consistently— can guide you to a very different life than you have today. The 1% shift is what makes the difference. And it can work in either direction. A 1% negative shift repeated daily can result in very negative results. And a 1% shift working toward your goal, repeated consistently, can shift your life dramatically, to a result that, as you read this today, you can barely imagine. This mental reframe can create phenomenal results in your life.
As we wake on January 1, 2021, and say goodbye to a year unlike we, as a world community, have experienced in our lifetimes, what has changed from December 31, 2020? We have so looked forward to a New Year, yet on this day, not much is different than it was the last day of 2020. And this is where this 1% shift can work for us in our thinking as well.
It doesn't take hours of journaling, meditating, or doing thought work. It's the incremental, small, 1% shifts, done consistently, that will make the difference. If you spend 10 minutes a day—only ten minutes—jotting down your thoughts, examining, and being present with them, you will, at the end of the year, have given yourself a gift of 60 hours devoted to you and your mind. That's an invaluable gift to yourself. And in only 10 minutes each day!
This year, be a one-percenter. Do the small things, and do them consistently. Know the vast difference that doing 1% over the next year can make in your life, personally, professionally, and emotionally.
Here's to possibilities. Fresh starts. Getting it right and achieving the goal that eluded you last year and doing something versus doing nothing.
Shifting—just 1%—is the difference-maker.