Well there's an interesting mashup of things to compare.  Rockets and puddles?  What in tarnation is going on here? (Thanks to the lovely and talented Audrey Carsonfor helping me bring the word tarnation back btw).

Let me explain myself.

I was listening to a business podcast the other day, and heard an intriguing thought.  The idea was that if you could grow your business by 1% per day over the course of a year, you'd grow it by 36.5x in 12 months.  That's a lot of growth for what feels like a fairly small daily change in effort.

The point is this...

So many times when we imagine growth, be it in business, fitness, or something else, we love to imagine rocket-like progress.

But here's the thing about rockets.  They are MEANT to be short lived.  Rockets fizzle out.  Rockets fall out of the sky.  Rockets crash and burn.  All of a sudden it's sounding pretty unappealing to be a rocket.

When I first discovered functional fitness, I have to admit, I had some pretty rocket-like growth.  I got in shape CRAZY fast.  I was stronger every time I touched a barbell.  I had cardio to spare in all of life's athletic pursuits. But if I look back, I wish I would have been more like a puddle.

Back to the concept of improving by 1% per day.

When I was thinking about the 1% concept, I had this vision of a single, slow drip on a tablecloth.  With every drip the water moves through the fabric and covers more real estate until eventually the whole darn thing is completely soaked.  That's the kind of growth we should be looking for.

When we crave the rocket ship, we don't want to hear that our power clean form sucks.  We don't want to hear that we should take a rest day.  We don't want to hear that maybe the supplement we're taking isn't the best thing for our health.  All we want to do is grow like a rocket, and if we keep it up, we'll get our wish.  Someday the rocket will run its course, and come crashing down to earth. If we demand constant growth at a breakneck pace, our rockets will eventually run out of fuel.

I think we should resist the temptation for rocket ship growth.  I think we should slow down, and do things right before we do them heavy.  I think we should slowly drip new concepts, movements, and intensity into our workouts until elite fitness just naturally bleeds through the fabric of our being.

Puddles don't crash and burn, they just grow bigger and bigger with every little drip.  That sounds a little more appealing than falling out of the sky like a rocket, doesn't it?

So stop feeling the pressure to stay on your rocket ship trajectory, and just concentrate on increasing an area of your life by 1% today...and tomorrow...and the next day.

It doesn't take long for all those little drips to add up!

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P.S.  The thing about 1% growth, is that it has to be done on purpose, and consistently.  We know having a consistent rope length for every practice session will pay off for you!  Click below to design the perfect speed rope!