Michael A Dunn | One Percent Better | October 2021 General Conference | Faith To Act
Channel: Faith to Act
Date: 2021-12-06

One Percent Better
By Elder Michael A. Dunn

Of the Seventy

Every effort to change we make—no matter how tiny it seems to us—just might make the biggest difference in our lives.

For more than a century, the national bicycle racing teams of Great Britain had been the laughingstock of the cycling world. Mired in mediocrity, British riders had managed only a handful of gold medals in 100 years of Olympic competitions and had been even more underwhelming in cycling’s marquee event, the three-week long Tour de France—where no British rider had prevailed in 110 years. So sorry was the plight of British riders that some bike manufacturers refused to even sell bikes to the Brits, fearing it would forever sully their hard-won reputations. And despite devoting enormous resources into cutting-edge technology and every newfangled training regimen, nothing worked.

Olympic Cyclists
Nothing, that is, until 2003, when a small, largely unnoticed change occurred that would forever alter the trajectory of British cycling. That new approach would also reveal an eternal principle—with a promise—regarding our ofttimes perplexing mortal quest to improve ourselves. So what happened in British cycling that has great relevance to our personal pursuit to be better daughters and sons of God?

In 2003, Sir Dave Brailsford was hired. Unlike previous coaches who attempted dramatic, overnight turnarounds, Sir Brailsford instead committed to a strategy he referred to as “the aggregation of marginal gains.” This entailed implementing small improvements in everything. That meant constantly measuring key statistics and targeting specific weaknesses.

It’s somewhat akin to the prophet Samuel the Lamanite’s notion of “walk[ing] circumspectly.”1 This broader, more holistic view avoids the trap of being myopically fixated on just the obvious problem or sin at hand. Said Brailsford, “The whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by 1 percent, you will get a significant increase when you put them all together.”2

His approach aligns well with that of the Lord, who taught us the criticalness of the 1 percent—even at the expense of the 99 percent. Of course, He was teaching the gospel imperative to seek out individuals in need. But what if we applied that same principle to the very sweet and savory second principle of the gospel, repentance? Rather than being stymied by the churn and dramatic swings between sin and repentance, what if our approach was to narrow our focus—even as we broadened it? Instead of trying to perfect everything, what if we tackled just one thing?

For example, what if in your new wide-angle awareness, you discover you have neglected a daily reading of the Book of Mormon? Well, instead of desperately plowing through all 531 pages in one night, what if we committed instead to read just 1 percent of it—that’s just five pages a day—or another manageable goal for your situation? Could aggregating small but steady marginal gains in our lives finally be the way to victory over even the most pesky of our personal shortcomings? Can this bite-sized approach to tackling our blemishes really work?

Well, acclaimed author James Clear says this strategy puts the math squarely in our favor. He maintains that “habits are the ‘compound interest of self-improvement.’ If you can get just one percent better at something each day, by the end of a year … you will be 37 times better.”3

Brailsford’s small gains began with the obvious, such as equipment, kit fabrics, and training patterns. But his team didn’t stop there. They continued to find 1 percent improvements in overlooked and unexpected areas such as nutrition and even maintenance nuances. Over time, these myriads of micro-betterments aggregated into stunning results, which came faster than anyone could have imagined. Truly, they were onto the eternal principle of “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little.”4

General Conference Sunday Afternoon Session October 2021

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