100 years for one second: How to get better and level up at anything (even if you are already pretty good)

It was a beautiful sunny day in Stockholm, Sweden, the site of the 1912 summer Olympics. At the newly built facility which is still in use today over a century later, a bulky and somewhat nervous 18-year old American, Donald Lippincott, stepped up to the starting line for the 100m heat race. There were no starting blocks back then so the runners crouched at the starting line and dug in their heels into the clay tracks. Ready. Set. Go!

Lippincott ran his heart out having paid his own way to Sweden to represent his country. And when the race was over, the first ever documented world record in the 100m race was set by the teenager – 10.6 seconds.

Over the years tens of thousands of athletes have run the 100m race. Countries like Canada and West Germany among others have had their taste of the 100m world record, but the US has mostly dominated the event with Carl Lewis and Leroy Burrell of the United States playing world record holder tag for almost a decade between 1988 and 1994. In 2005, Jamaica took over and proceeded to set the next five consecutive world records culminating in the current world record set by Usain Bolt in 2009. His time - 9.58 seconds.

That is only 1 second faster than Donald Lippincott’s record of 10.6 set 100 years before.

In other words, through tens of thousands of athletes, it has taken mankind, 100 years to run the 100m 1 second faster. 100 years, for 1 second.

That, my friend, is a testament to the power of small incremental gains in performance. Something that a lot of people do not give enough attention to.

Small Gains

We all want the big gains. If we put in the work, we want to see huge improvements! And usually we want to see those improvements quickly! When we start an exercise program or take a course or seminar, we want to make big strides forward—lose a lot weight, gain a lot of muscle, become powerful communicators, professionals, parents, business people, quickly.

We want big gains and we want them quickly.

This is usually all well and good in the beginning. It is common for people who are brand new to exercise to see significant changes the first few weeks into an exercise program. And even a little more knowledge in an area of self development where you were terribly lacking before can be beneficial for performance. Once you get started, you are likely to make some long strides forwards in your skills and confidence.

But also likely, as you get better, progress will slow. This leads you to feel stuck or stagnated. Exercisers call this the plateau.

Level High Ground

A plateau is a kind of land formation in geography defined as a level area of relatively high ground. Boy, doesn’t that just sum it up? “Relatively high ground”.

A lot of people are on plateaus in different aspects in their lives. Compared to others, these people are on high ground, but not climbing any higher. Having attained a degree of competence, they start to experience little or no change or progress.  

When you find yourself here, as I quite often have, you are not summiting the mountain of mastery, you are sauntering along a plateau of complacency.

The Next Level

This is the main thrust of the idea I want to share with you today—big gains come when we are developing initial competence in a skill. But once we attain to a level of comfort, that next step—mastery—comes from a deep respect for, and relentless pursuit of often small but incredibly focused improvements.

These micro-gains, though seemingly imperceptible, make all the difference. Improvements like the 0.02 second difference that allowed Leroy Burrell in 1991 to beat Carl Lewis’ world record of 1988.

To put this in perspective: if I somehow got everyone reading this article to blink at exactly the same time and we took an average of how long our blinks took, the research literature predicts that, it would be about 0.2 seconds—10 times longer than the difference between the two runners.

Now you might be thinking to yourself: Ease up there Anthony. I’m not trying to set a new world record in anything much less a gruelling and physically demanding sport like sprinting. Heck, I can’t even jog around the block without feeling like I’m knocking on heaven’s door. I just want to improve as a speaker, or a leader or a _____ [fill in the blank].

Here’s the thing—this applies to every skill you and I are trying to develop. Once we achieve a level of comfort and competence, we need to continue to push ourselves for gains in specific areas if we are going to get any better.

How to level up

In his deeply insightful book, Peak, Anders Ericsson outlines a simple but effective approach to leveling up through what he termed deliberate practice. This is a process of practicing the skill you are working on with a deep focus on one aspect of the skill at a time. The goal of this intensely focused practice is to improve that one aspect, and so doing, improve your overall execution.

But then the question might arise—when you are already good at something, what aspect do you focus on? The answer: Focus on the weakest link in your current abilities.

…the way to level up after attaining a respectable degree of competence is to turn your attention to focused and deliberate improvement of the fine points of your craft that are hampering you currently.

For example, if you are a confident and competent speaker who is effective overall in your content and delivery, but your stage craft or non-verbal techniques are not honed, then that is where you focus. You can begin to dedicate a few rounds of rehearsals for each presentation, to improving just one of those fine points seeking micro gains in that area. I use the example of a speaker, but this applies to all forms of skill and performance. Ericsson himself gives the example of students learning how to type.

After attaining already fast word per minute typing speeds, these students would start to pay attention to the word combinations that slowed them down the most, for example words containing combinations of o and l. Words containing combinations of these letters can be hard to type because o is right above l on the keyboard. By deliberately practicing typing words containing the combination such as lot, bolt, close, blow etc. typing students are able to greatly improve their speed without loss in accuracy. In other words, by focusing on the aspect of the typing skill that was slowing them down, and improving it, they became better typists overall.

This brings us to the main takeaway: the way to level up after attaining a respectable degree of competence is to turn your attention to focused and deliberate improvement of the fine points of your craft that are hampering you currently.

As Ericsson puts it:

First, figure out what is holding you back. What mistakes are you making, and when? Push yourself outside your comfort zone and see what breaks down first. Then design a practice technique aimed at improving that particular weakness.

Until the next article, be your best and do your best.