The 1% Rule: How to Fall in Love with the Process and Achieve Your Wildest Dreams

by Tommy Baker

Nothing separates you and me from those whom we admire and look up to at the top of the mountain—we’re one and the same. The only difference is the way they define and perceive success, their level of clarity around goal setting, and their associated behaviors and habits.

there is a deep-rooted myth that runs rampant in our culture and society: Success comes in a moment—and can happen overnight.

Our expectations are sky high, and we’re prone to giving up at the first sign of struggle or obstacles.

Without starting and jumping into the cold water, you’ll never clearly see the pivot and the opportunity in front of you, no matter what area of life you’re in.

Our obsession with the highlight reel gives us another debilitating illusion: There’s a perfect time to get started—and it’s not right now.

Most people operate under the illusion that success will be easy, regardless of past experiences, and feel disappointed and move on at the first sign telling them otherwise.

We will experience challenges, adversity, and chaos at least once every single day. Operating under this ethos allows us to not be surprised, but rather to get excited when it comes. We recognize this, knowing our competition will fold when faced with a similar circumstance, as would have our prior selves.

Even during your most challenging days, you’ll systematically move your life forward with an inner knowing that nothing can phase you, and it’s only a matter of time.

Think about your own beliefs and assumptions, and your obsession with the highlight reel of life. Take a moment to reflect and answer the following question: Where does believing this myth show up in my life and how can I change that starting today?

When we feel we’re moving the needle forward in life, even a seemingly insignificant amount, we stay motivated. Progress keeps us inspired and on track.

The 1% Rule: 1% progress + daily application (consistency) + persistence (focus) + time (endurance) = success.

When I focused on small daily actions tied to the larger vision, I felt invigorated and inspired, and I moved the needle. When I focused on the end result and the massive vision I’d created, I felt depleted and uninspired, and suffered from paralysis by analysis.

Knowing: an insight, a spark, a concept—simply a starting point. For example, you intellectually know how to launch a million-dollar business, drop on a wave to surf, or communicate with confidence.

Doing: the chasm of endless reps, practice, challenges, and adversity. This is where you put all your knowing into practice—and it’s hard. It’s supposed to be. Most people quit here before they get anywhere near the next phase.

Being: where the magic happens. You are no longer the logical concept. It’s who you are. It’s being on the wave and not thinking because you’ve transcended it. It’s the way you walk into a room or hold spa...

When you’re already overwhelmed, adding more to your plate will lead to the foundation crumbling. It’s simply unsustainable given our limited amount of bandwidth and energy.

We’ve all seen and felt this before. During the first few weeks of a new initiative, we’re able to follow through. We’re loving the newfound sense of possibility and results and, because it’s new, we’ve got the dopamine hit of a new routine. However, our brains are masters at making the novel routine, and we begin to notice a downtick in enthusiasm. Every day, energy starts to fade.

It’s not a matter of if chaos is going to hit—it’s a matter of when. We can have a well-thought-out backup plan, but you and I know life will throw us curveballs time and time again.

If you decide to trust the process and embrace the daily consistency required to build the foundation of your dreams, you’ll experience a shift in your life. You’ll create an environment where there’s a deeper sense of knowing, a grounded, rooted confidence and certainty about your path and how all your dreams are slowly coming to life.

We only truly value that which is earned—and specifically, that which we earn through the process of becoming.

According to multiple studies, about 70% of all lottery winners end up going broke and filing for bankruptcy. It’s because they didn’t earn it or have to change who they were to achieve the monetary success of winning the lottery. Creating financial abundance in life isn’t easy. It requires work, persistence, and a changing of one’s mindset.

The 1% Rule is about stepping daily into a version of yourself that’s already out there. This version of yourself already has all the goals you’re desiring, and you’re simply taking one step toward making that real today. It’s about the process of becoming, slowly going through a metamorphosis.

when you get there, you will have become someone different than who you are today. Inherently, that means you’ll have to go through change, and part of change is being uncomfortable. When you tr...

We’d much rather stay in what’s known and uncomfortable—even if it’s painful. We’re afraid of the unknown, and we lack the courage to step into it with faith. Our world can be spinning in chaos and mediocrity, but we won’t be compelled to change because it’s familiar.

What you must consider is that your current vantage point is limited. The success you’re dreaming of won’t hold a candle to what’s truly possible for you.

The big leaps will never happen if we don’t get used to taking the small ones. Faith is a muscle that must be built and developing any kind of muscle requires repetition. The 1% Rule was designed to help you build this faith every single day with micro-leaps and commitments, so when the high-stakes moments in life appear, you’ll be ready.

Indecision costs us more than we can ever imagine. This alarming cost includes time, energy, resources, stress, and the constant wasted bandwidth of overthinking. As we move forward with our dreams, we’re already overwhelmed with logic, reasoning, and trying to figure out “how.”

I asked him what the most difficult day for people who set goals is. Most assume it’s the first day when they get started, or possibly the last few days as they push to finish. When I asked Jon (Acuff 2017), he said: “Simple—Day two is the hardest day and where we see the most drop off.”

If you stay with it when it gets hard, you can have breakthroughs to new levels in all areas of your life.”

We’ve all experienced what Millman details with his example of the unicycle, the days we simply want to quit. In the moment, we feel lost. If we can weather the storm, there’s progress waiting for us on the other side.

By living this part of the 1% Rule code, we become the creators of our lives instead of the reactors. We don’t live conditionally, waiting to feel inspired, excited, and ready. We simply move forward every single day, even if it’s an inch or two, and flex the muscle of progress and consistency that only gets ...

In your life, you’re experiencing wins every single day, most of which go unnoticed or unacknowledged. Celebrating your wins gives you jet fuel to keep going and extends a token of appreciation for how far you’ve come, instead of focusing on what’s missing.

Without tracking, we live in a fantasy, which makes decision-making, pivoting, and knowing what’s working or not a nightmare.

Mastery takes time, there’s no way around it. Expect to invest in thousands of hours to deliberate practice as you sharpen your skills. Whether it’s mastering communication or marketing, there’s no shortcut to get you there.

It’s easy to invest time and effort in a skill when it’s new. Once you start to become decent at it, it can become boring. Embracing this and pushing past to a place where you endure will make you invaluable to any marketplace.

It’s not the quality of our skills that stops us. It’s not the quality of the information that stops us. It’s not the know-how or the inspiration that stops us. Without a doubt, the number one obstacle standing between people and their dreams is a lack of focus.

you and I know there’s a difference between a busy day and a productive, fulfilling day. We’ve all experienced a day where we were extremely busy, yet nothing got done. The symptoms of these days include feeling scattered, exhausted, and overwhelmed.

in an ever-distracted and changing world, the ability to engage in deep work makes you rare and inherently valuable. Furthermore, the quality of your output increases, as does the level of your feelings of purpose and fulfillment.

the greatest cost of this addiction is your dreams not coming to fruition. At first glance, one distracted day may not seem like much. We tell ourselves that tomorrow things will change—and nothing does.

Focus is a practice, which means you’re building a skill. Much like flexing a muscle at the gym, you get stronger the more you use it.

When we practice, it’s much more important to do it daily for an hour than to do it twice a week for three hours. Duration is less important than intensity and consistency.

The truth is, the average American is productive for two to three hours a day

Steady progress will win the race, and slowly you’ll start to build a new network of neural connections designed to keep you in focused work for longer durations of time. You’ll reap the benefits that come with knowing where you’re going and being able to prove to yourself you’re on your way.

If clarity and inspiration get us started, persistence is the grit beneath it all. It’s messy and keeps you going long after the high of starting has worn off.

Starting is easy. Let’s not kid ourselves—new is exciting. It provides endless amounts of the insatiable spark of inspiration.

Do you persist and endure, continuously growing though support and challenge? Or… Do you find the next “new” thing to latch on to so you can feel the initial feelings again?

While intense, challenging, and tough, grit and persistence are beautiful and will give your journey meaning.

Persistence is created by choosing it time and time again. Every single day, we will experience countless moments of doubt and fluctuations in our physical, mental, and emotional energy, all of which can stop us in our tracks. The cultivation of persistence requires us to detach from the feelings of the moment. Specifically, it’s about executing, regardless of what we’re feeling—all the time.

We grossly underestimate how hard it will be to complete our vision and outcomes. We assume a few challenges, yet we never know what it’s truly going to take.

Reframing challenges as opportunities to grow and doubling down on your vision is crucial to flexing the muscle of persistence.