Atharv’s Chronicle 31-05-2025 “KAIZEN : TINY ACTIONS – Big Impact”

Welcome to this edition of my newsletter!

There is this one principle which has impacted my life in significant manner and it has helped me grow over the time by just making small progress everyday and without getting burned out.

Yes, The principle is called Kaizen – one of the oldest Japanese principle which was used after the world war-II to rebuild everything which they had lost from the war.

Many companies like Toyota used this principle to fix small errors everyday and tried to become better just by making small changes everyday!
Not limited to companies, we can also implement this principle in our life – we can become a better person by building a great attitude/character/personality just by making simple and small changes everyday!

Adding to the above principle – there is this famous quote from James Clear – “If you get better just by 1% everyday, you will be 37times better at the end of the year!”
this is not just a fancy quote – this is actual mathematical formula!

if we just go on making a small changes everyday consistently over the time – they will eventually compound and produce great results!

Usually we will be very excited while defining our big goals (at times, just planing gives the sense of achievement – which is wrong)
For Example –

– Going to the Gym everyday
– Waking up at 5AM everyday
– Talking to 100 new prospects for a business everyday
– Saving 1 Crore in a year
– Earning million dollars from new business etc

and we would start with a bang and think of achieving all of our goals and eventually they would crash as it is difficult to keep up!
when it comes to reality – we would do it on day1, day2, day3 and give up on day4 and feel like a failure and eventually give up completely!

Instead, we can break down these goals into daily actionable steps and do them regularly
For Example –

– Instead of going for an 1 hr workout – just do 15 pushups.
– Instead of thinking to get up at 5AM – wake up just 15 mins before your actual wake up time.
– Instead of talking to 100 customers, just make a call to 5 prospects.
– Instead of thinking to save a crore rupees, just start by tracking your expenses.
– Instead of thinking of making a million dollars from business – just start by selling your service/product to one customer.

these might sound very simple right?

Exactly — that’s the point!
No pressure. It’s so small, you can’t say no. And here’s what usually happens – once you start, you keep going. That’s human psychology.

and we all should know that we are following this principle since birth
-You remember how you learned to walk? did it happen at one go?
-remember How you started to speak? How you started to read?
-remember how you started to use phone?
-remember How you started to code?

All these happened in step by step right!

Everything gets better through repetition
and make sure to add value through each repetition
and eventually you get better!

That’s how the real growth happens!
and that’s how we stick with it!

How this Principle has helped me!

I started my self improvement journey way back from 2014
I had a mentor and was learning many things to get better.
it all came down to how I was managing my time and making the best out of it!

I wanted to wake up at 5AM everyday, read one book per week, exercise all 7 days a week,
study 4 hours/day and so many things
I wanted to do everything, got started with many things and eventually gave up on them!
It was too much pressure though I was motivated

After Learning Kaizen principle from my mentor – it changed many things!
I stopped going all in!

Instead I started with small chunks of tasks which can be easily repeated everyday!

– I started just by reading one page of the book
– I started just with 30 crunches everyday
– I started with 30 mins of reading for exam everyday

eventually, I repeated these activities over the time and they became a habit which has helped me become what I am today!

– I workout/move my body everyday in one or the other form (Walk/ Run/ Swim/ Gym etc)
– I am able to read minimum 5 pages everyday as I have practiced reading (Book/Blog/Articles etc)
– I am able to publish 32 newsletters so far because I write everyday!
– I am able to speak confidently in my first Youtube Video as I have practiced speaking over the time!

All these are part of my daily routine.
We shouldn’t aim for perfection and not try to change the whole life in one/two weeks!
We just need to start small, stay consistent, and let it build!

Hope this resonated with you! See you next week!