Continuous Improvement: Silent Secret to Success

What is Continuous Improvement?

Continuous improvement is all about the dedication of making small changes and improvements everyday, such that these small improvements will add up to something important. The common approach to self-improvement is to set a specific goal and take steps to accomplish the goal within a limited time period. This may sound good in theory, but sometimes it ends in burnout, frustration and failure. So for that, we should focus on continuous improvement by slowly and steadily adjusting our daily routine habits and behaviour.

How does Continuous Improvement work?

Sometimes we convince ourselves that change is only meaningful if there is some visible outcome associated with it like losing weight, building a business or any other goal and we often put pressure on ourselves to make remarkable improvements such that everyone will talk about. Improving by just 1 percent isn’t notable but in a long run it can be meaningful. If you get one percent better each day continuously for one year, you will end up thirty-seven times better.

Tools for Continuous Improvement

Do more of that which already works

There are many examples that give a chance to drive progress in our lives, only if it is done with more consistency, like flossing everyday, not missing workouts, performing business tasks each day and not just when you have time and many more. For improvement, you only need to do more of what already works.

Avoid small losses

Improvement is not only about doing more things right but also about doing a few things wrong. It is easier to improve your performance by cutting the downside rather than capturing the upside. Subtraction is more practical than addition.

Backward measurement

Our progress is often measured by looking forward. We set goals, plan for our progress, we try to predict the future for something good and better, but there is an opposite which is a more useful approach. Measuring backward means making decisions based on what has already happened, not on what you want to happen.

You can read about Continuous Improvement to know more.

Recommended readings:

The Goal by Eliyahu Goldratt
Running Lean by Ash Maurya