The book “Atomic Habits” came highly recommended from multiple sources—and I finally took the chance to read through it.
One of the anecdotes in the book that stood out to me explained a real scenario in which a photography professor broke his class up into two groups.
Group one would be graded on how many photos they submitted in total. This was the “quantity” group.
Group two would be graded on the submittal of one perfect, high-quality photo. This was the “quality” group.
Upon submittal, it turned out that the quantity group produced the best photos, as they had practiced and experimented with every possible form of lighting, developing, etc. They tried a lot of things that didn’t work, and ended up finding the methods that led to much better results than the perfectionist approach would have.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
“The master has failed more times than the beginner has even tried.” ― Stephen McCranie
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
How many times have we waited for perfection, only to indefinitely delay a goal, never reach the level that we aspire to, or fumble through meaningless details?
“Atomic Habits” provides an outline for creating a pattern that is small enough to be repeated over and over again, to establish a routine that will lead to better results over the long run than would otherwise be attained by setting big, lofty goals all at once.
From a learning & development standpoint, the most successful among us understand that it’s more important to get as much practice as you can, than it is to get one powerful rep in.
What do you do to get your reps in and build long-term momentum?