The Kaizen way to self improvement- Best way to get 1% better everyday

Self-improvement is a never-ending journey and every second of your life you can find new improvement opportunities for yourself. kaizen way is one of the best methods of self-improvement. If you are dedicated to improving yourself then nothing is impossible for you in this world.

Well in this article I am going to discuss the Japanese way of self-improvement – the Kaizen technique. At the end of this article, you will understand why Kaizen way is the best method of self-improvement. Let’s start…

 

 

A Japanese business coach has said that “No one wants to translate Kaizen because in translation it will lose its meaning”. In Western countries, people think Kaizen means continuous improvement but that is actually the output of Kaizen implementation.

Kaizen actually made of two words. As per BBC religion, Zen means the thought process of “Mahayana Buddhism” which includes self-understanding with the help of meditation and intuition. Kai means to improve every time.

So in complete Kaizen means by self-understanding improve yourself every time. This also means that to master anything, improve yourself every time and remove all the unnecessary things that distract you.

Kaizen is actually the discipline of thinking in the right way, in which we can control ourselves from being stuck in a negative belief system. (Check out – How to Make Mindset strong?)

Through Kaizen, we can control our thoughts and take action in the right direction so that we can continuously improve ourselves in our personal as well as professional life.

 

Principles of Kaizen – 

 

1.  We can do better every time even if the situation is worse.
2.  Always take guidance from different experts, never rely on one expert.
3.  Never get into the habit of “giving excuses”, always focus on the solution of a problem.
4.  Start the improvement process by taking small actions.

 

After World war-II, Mangers of American auto companies visited the Toyota factory to understand how one company doing production with high speed by maintaining quality at the same time. They found the best management technique there.

In which, for any defect or mistake, workers never got punished instead of that workers are responsible to solve all problems in the production line. This technique focuses on motivating all the workers to find defects or problems in the process and make improvement in it, also provide suggestions to management.

As per this technique, “Don’t do mistakes, Don’t produce defectives” this is not a warning to workers, it is actually an inspiration to workers. Because Japanese management understood that the one hidden mistake or defect could damage the quality and speed of the entire production line.

On the other hand, they know that if there is no problem in our processes or operations then we can easily increase our production without any limitation.

Kaizen is talking about the same thing that “small hidden mistakes can produce big problems or defects in the process” same is true from our life perceptive that “small weakness within us can reduce our growth in personal as well as professional life” so now how you can apply this technique in your life?

You can apply Kaizen in daily routine only when, when you know that what’s going on in your daily routine and I am sure that right now you only know that you are too busy in daily activities, you can’t concentrate fully, you are not consistent but you don’t know the patterns of these behaviors.

 

Daily review system for Kaizen way of self-improvement –

 

That’s why you should create a daily review system for yourself. For example, the simplest review system to understand what you did in the whole day? Every day Just ask two questions before you get to the bed.

1. Today, which good things I have done?
2. One thing which I want to improve tomorrow?

Write answers of these questions daily to review your entire day and this will help you to find your hidden mistakes. We know the core principle of Kaizen i.e. Waste reduction or avoid mistakes.

So if you want to improve yourself then with the help of a review system find the hidden mistakes which you continuously doing and then on daily basis reduce doing those mistakes.

Successful people like field experts, CEOs, athletes, or artists always do this, they focus on small improvements on a daily basis and by doing these small improvements they create big changes in their work or in life.

Kaizen technique gives more emphasis on the concept of “Change is now”, you should take action towards that change which is possible to do right now. For eg- if you want to review your entire day at night then what you should do to implement that change? just set alarm as a reminder so when the alarm clocks you can review your day by asking those 2 questions.

The point which I wanted to clarify here is that you should never wait for big changes, start doing small changes because big changes will happen when you make small changes in your work on a daily basis.

Eg- if you want to run 2 km every Morning, to achieve that stamina you need to start practicing 100 m running every day by the end of 1 month you can easily start running 2 km in one shot. Kaizen helps us to avoid procrastination so whatever changes you want to create within you, start doing it right now by taking small steps.

 

Story from the self-improvement book –

 

I remember one story from the book “ One small step can change your life – the Kaizen way” Author Robert told the story of Jack Stubb, who was a rich businessman and unfortunately he was suffered from a dangerous disease called “Rheumatoid arthritis”. When the doctor checked jack they found in the X-ray report that 20 bone joints in jack’s body were completely damaged.

 

 

Doctors told the jack that from now onward you can’t do exercise because exercise could damage your body completely. But jack was a stubborn guy, he started thinking that if I live this way then my life would be a complete waste.

So he started doing small improvements like for 10 to 15 days he just stands for 20 sec every day then next 15 day he started walking, after 2 months of basic body movements, he finally joined the gym. Initially, he went there just to see gym equipment every day.

Jack was afraid of his body pain but to remove that fear he started taking small steps and finally he started doing exercise in the gym. When author Robert met Jack for the first time, at that time jack was completely fit in his 70’s and that year he won the Mr. World bodybuilding championship.

 

 

This story represents kaizen way of self-improvement so I would recommend all the readers if you want to see big changes in your life then start implementing Kaizen Now. If you like this article then please share and subscribe to get such content also comment below, what’s your thought on Kaizen…