Aggregation of Marginal Gains

Finding life difficult? Maybe you’re aiming too high. Ever thought about aiming for being only one percent better each day?

That’s all. Not ten percent. Not revolutionary change. Not dramatic transformation. Just one percent better. Do that consistently, compound it over time, and you’ll end up somewhere completely different from where you started.

This is the principle of aggregation of marginal gains, and it’s responsible for turning British cycling from an international laughing stock into a dominant force. It can work for you too, but only if you let it.

The British Cycling Story

I’m a cyclist. I love riding my bike. I’ve got a classic steel Cinelli Supercorsa, the same model apparently that Steve Jobs favoured. I’ve done some epic rides in France, climbed Mont Ventoux back when I was young and stupid enough to think that was a good idea. But I’m not here to bore you with my cycling exploits. Instead, I’m here to tell you about Dave Brailsford and how he used the concept of the aggregation of marginal gains to achieve something remarkable.

When Brailsford took over as performance director of British Cycling, and later as manager of Team Sky in 2010, British cycling had never produced a Tour de France winner. Never. Despite success on the track, and despite Olympic medals, the Tour remained unconquered.

Brailsford’s approach? Break everything down. Divide each difficulty into as many parts as feasible and necessary to resolve it. Sound familiar? It should. That’s Descartes. Same bloke we discussed in the article on the Zero Law. Divide and conquer, but now applied to cycling performance.

Brailsford’s philosophy was simple. Improve everything by one percent. Not massive changes. Tiny improvements. Lots of them. Then aggregate them together. As he put it in interviews at the time, the whole principle came from the idea that if you broke down everything you could think of that goes into riding a bike, and then improved it by one percent, you’d get a significant increase when you put them all together.

How It Actually Worked

Team Sky focused on everything. Not just the obvious stuff. Everything.

Nutrition? Optimised. Training? Broken down into precise metrics. Equipment? Analysed and improved. Recovery? Each rider got their own pillow, their own mattress that travelled with them. Why? Because sleep quality matters. Because one percent matters.

They even tested which type of massage gel provided the best muscle recovery. They analysed the aerodynamics of different skinsuits. They worked out the optimal hand-washing technique to reduce illness. No detail too small, and no improvement too marginal.

Brailsford organised his approach into three areas: strategy, human performance, and continuous improvement. In each area, they broke down problems further and further until they could find solutions. Small solutions and marginal gains, then they aggregated them.

The Results

In 2012, Bradley Wiggins, nicknamed Le Gentleman by the French press, became the first British winner of the Tour de France. Chris Froome won the following year, on the Tour’s hundredth edition, then again in 2015, 2016 and 2017. He crashed out in 2014, otherwise he’d probably have won that one too.

Geraint Thomas, another Sky rider, became the first Welshman to win Le Tour, in 2018. Interesting fact about Thomas: in his Tour debut in 2007, he came 140th out of 141 riders. Literally pedalled himself from the bottom to the top of his sport over the following decade.

How? Marginal gains. Aggregated. Compounded. Relentlessly. It’s worth saying, too, that the Sky years weren’t without their own controversies, and the team’s methods were scrutinised heavily in the years that followed. Whatever you make of that, the underlying principle, that tiny, systematic improvements compound into large results, holds up on its own.

What This Means For You

You’re not trying to win the Tour de France, yet the principle applies to whatever you’re trying to achieve.

Want to clear the clutter in your house? Deal with one drawer, one shelf, or one box a day. Do that for a month, and you’ve worked through thirty of them without ever facing an overwhelming weekend of upheaval.

One drawer a day isn’t overwhelming. It’s marginal. But aggregated over time, it’s transformative.

Want to get fit? Do one squat or one press-up today. Tomorrow, add one more. Keep doing that until it becomes automatic. Marginal gains, aggregated over time.

Want to learn a language? Learn ten words a day. In a year, that’s 3,650 words, enough for functional fluency in a lot of everyday situations. Ten words a day feels manageable. 3,650 words feels impossible. But they’re the same thing, just aggregated.

Why People Reject This Approach

One percent doesn’t feel like enough. That’s the problem.

People want dramatic transformation. They want to lose two stone in a month, become fluent in French in three weeks, build a business overnight. They want big results from big changes.

So they make big plans. Massive overhauls. Revolutionary systems. Then they burn out within a week and quit.

The aggregation of marginal gains doesn’t feel satisfying. It feels too slow, too incremental, too boring. One percent better today doesn’t feel different from yesterday. But compound that over a year? Completely different.

James Clear calls this the plateau of latent potential. You make small improvements consistently, but you don’t see results immediately, and you’re trudging through the valley of disappointment. Then suddenly you break through, the compound effect kicks in, and the marginal gains aggregate into something significant.

The Mathematics of Marginal Gains

Let me show you the mathematics. You’ll like this if you enjoyed the article on the Zero Law.

If you get one percent better each day for a year, you don’t end up 365 percent better. You end up nearly 38 times better. That’s the power of compound growth. 1.01 to the power of 365 works out at just under 38.

Conversely, if you get one percent worse each day, 0.99 to the power of 365 comes out at close to zero. So the direction matters. Small improvements compound into remarkable results. Small declines compound into disaster. The mathematics works both ways.

Think Small, Not Big

Team Sky’s success came from thinking small, not big.

They didn’t try to revolutionise cycling. They didn’t invent new training methods. They just looked at everything they were already doing and asked how they could make it one percent better.

That’s the key. You don’t need to reinvent yourself. You need to improve yourself, marginally, and consistently.

Look at your current habits, your current systems, your current approach. What can you improve by one percent? What small tweak would make things marginally better?

Not perfect. Not revolutionary. Just marginally better. Then do that. Then find another marginal gain. Then another, and keep aggregating.

Focus on Progress, Not Perfection

Perfection is the enemy of progress, as we’ve touched on elsewhere in this section.

If you wait until you can do something perfectly, you’ll never start. If you demand perfection from every effort, you’ll quit when you fall short, which you will, because perfection doesn’t exist.

Progress is different. Progress is achievable. Progress is measurable. Progress compounds.

One percent better is progress. Not perfect, but better. Do that consistently, aggregate those gains, and eventually you’ll be somewhere remarkable.

The Three Principles

Brailsford’s approach was organised around three areas: strategy, human performance, and continuous improvement.

Strategy means knowing what you’re trying to achieve and how you’re going to get there. Clear goals. Clear plans. Clear metrics for success.

Human performance means optimising yourself. Your health, your skills, your energy, your recovery. Everything that affects your ability to perform at your best.

Continuous improvement means never stopping. Always looking for the next marginal gain. Always tweaking, testing, refining. Never satisfied, but never discouraged either.

Apply these three principles to your own life and see what happens.

The Geraint Thomas Lesson

Remember Geraint Thomas? 140th out of 141 riders in his Tour debut. That’s last place, basically.

Eleven years later, he won the thing. How? Marginal gains, aggregated over a decade.

He didn’t give up after coming last. He didn’t decide he wasn’t good enough. He just kept improving. Marginally. Consistently.

That’s the lesson. You don’t have to be the best today. You don’t even have to be good today. You just have to be marginally better than yesterday. Then repeat that for years if necessary.

What To Do Now

Pick one thing. Just one. What’s one area of your life you want to improve?

Now ask yourself what one percent better looks like in that area. Not ten percent. Not transformation. Just one percent.

Then do that. Today. One marginal gain.

Tomorrow, do it again. Find another marginal gain. Keep doing this. Keep aggregating.

In a year, you’ll be somewhere completely different. Not because of one big change. Because of hundreds of small ones.

The Final Word

Aggregation of marginal gains isn’t sexy. It’s not motivational. It doesn’t make good Instagram content.

But it works. Proven. Consistently. Relentlessly.

Stop waiting for the perfect moment to make massive changes. Start making tiny improvements right now, aggregate them, and compound them.

One percent better. That’s all. Do that every day, and in a year you’ll be unrecognisable.

Now go find your first marginal gain.

Further reading

• Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Avery.
• Descartes, R. (1637). Discourse on the Method. Leiden.
• Duhigg, C. (2012). The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business. Random House.
• Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance. Psychological Review, 100(3), 363-406.
• Syed, M. (2015). Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes. Portfolio.