Hello!

Hi, Nice to meet you. I’m Natalie, and for as long as I can remember I’ve been writing and telling stories. It is truly the one thing in life that brings me pure joy, both the act of writing and the sharing. Readers and writers are like a creative potluck. We all put something out there we’re proud of and think others will enjoy, and we sample those of our peers as well. 

With that in mind, welcome to my Substack: 1% Better. 

I know what you might be thinking: 1% better than what? Let me explain. 

I’m not sure where I stumbled upon this idea, but about a decade ago, I read somewhere that if you got 1% better each day, you’d consistently be leveling-up yourself and your life. Over time, this idea has popped up everywhere. James Clear has talked about it, Oprah has talked about it, there are thousands of articles about it. Apparently, millions of other people found the idea as alluring as I did. 

Ever since that day, I’ve tried to be 1% better than I was the day before. Sometimes I feel like I hit the 1%, sometimes I feel like I maybe hit 2%, and sometimes I have a day so “bad” that I feel like I might have had some points taken away. 

One time, after quite a few “bad” days, I started thinking, “How am I even measuring this nebulous 1%? How am I quantifying it? Is it applying to my entire day? Certain parts of my day?” I began to deconstruct the 1% and here’s where I landed:

Every day you are bombarded with choices from the second you wake up. You can choose to not hit snooze, choose to wake up with an enthusiastic spirit, choose to brush your teeth for the full two minutes, choose to make your bed before you leave the bedroom. Depending on who you are, any one of those choices might have already set you up to (in your personal estimation) be 1% better. I mean, c’mon. It is SO HARD to not hit the snooze button. We all deserve some kind of recognition for not doing that. 

You can be 1% better with your physical health, your mental health, your spiritual health, your relationships. The list goes on. 

Once I realized all of the avenues to be 1% better, I started learning more about how complex it is to be human simply existing in this world every day. You don’t even have to step outside to experience an overwhelming amount of complexity. 

All of this brings me here, to this newsletter. 

As you can tell, I think about how to be 1% better a lot. For over a decade, I’ve taken daily inventory and asked myself honestly, “Was I 1% better?” And remember, it’s OK if the answer is “no.” You don’t lose brownie points or jewels on your crown in heaven. I think it’s quite the contrary. Simply by being honest about the feelings you have about yourself, you are already making yourself better! 

In this newsletter, I hope to help build you up because being a person in this world is hard enough, you don’t have to be hard on yourself too. And my hope is that this gentle affirmation and encouragement will help you be your best self (whatever that means to you) 1% at a time. 

So thank you for your interest in 1% Better and thank you for the gift of your time reading this. 

With gratitude,

Natalie