Do 1% Better

Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. - James 4:8

When I was scrolling through TikTok the other day, I came across a video created by one of the girls I follow. Her name is Caitlyn and for the last year, she’s been posting all about her journey to lose 80 pounds. I love watching her videos because she’s super real and down to earth, and she’s very open about all of the highs and lows she’s faced on her health journey.

In the video she posted a few nights ago, she talked about some of the practical steps she’d taken to make progress toward her health goals. And one of those practical steps really stuck out to me.

She said, “Every day, I strive to do 1% better than I did the day before.”

I don’t know about you, but I love a practical step that doesn’t immediately come across as overwhelming. So I was intrigued when I heard Caitlyn make this statement.

So often, when it comes to getting healthy, we feel the pressure to do all the things all at once. We expect ourselves in a matter of days to go from having a sedentary lifestyle where we’re eating fast food constantly to working out 5-6 times per week and eating only whole foods.

But if you’ve ever applied this strategy to any sort of health and wellness goal, then you know it doesn’t work.

We can’t make that many changes overnight and expect them all to stick. But what we can do is begin to make small improvements each day that will eventually build on each other and help us create healthier habits.

If you didn’t drink any water yesterday, you can drink a glass of water today.

If you spent yesterday on the couch, you can go for a walk today.

If you ate a bunch of junk food yesterday, you can eat a piece of fruit today.

These types of improvements - these 1% changes - are a lot more manageable and a lot easier to build on as time goes by.

Now…let me ask you a question.

What would it look like to apply this strategy to our relationship with Jesus?

So often, we approach the journey of following Jesus the same way we look at our health and wellness journey. We think we have to make a bunch of changes overnight and implement all the things all at the same time if we’re going to do Christianity right.

We think we need to have 2-hour-long quiet times every single morning.

We think we need to write pages and pages of prayers in our journals each day.

We think we need to volunteer with multiple different ministries at church to help as many people as possible.

And if we’re not doing all of these things at all times, we’re failing.

That’s an overwhelming thought, isn’t it? That’s a lot of pressure for us to carry when we expect ourselves to do all the things all the time.

So, I’ll ask you again: what would it look like to apply the “1% better” strategy to your walk with Jesus?

If you didn’t read your Bible yesterday, how about reading the verse of the day today?

If you only prayed before your meals yesterday, what if you prayed while you drove to work, took a shower, or cooked dinner today?

If you didn’t minister to anyone yesterday, what if you texted a friend a word of encouragement today?

These might seem like no big deal, like something so small won't make a difference in your walk with Jesus. But when we take steps like these, when we choose to do 1% better, a snowball effect happens. We begin to build on these behaviors. And that’s when our relationship with Jesus starts to deepen.

So, friend, if you’re feeling overwhelmed today, if you feel like you’re not doing enough, or if you feel like you’re failing in your walk with Jesus, I want to encourage you to just do 1% better today. Make one decision. Take one action. Do one small thing. I promise it’ll make a bigger difference in the long run than you think.