this is boring but you’ll outwork everyone

Inchworm Theory

The video explains Jared Tendler’s Inchworm Theory: performance is not one fixed level, but a range. Your A-game is what you can do at your best, your C-game is how you tend to behave at your worst, and most days fall somewhere between them.

Progress means reaching new levels while making weaker performances less damaging—not expecting to perform at your best all the time.

A breakthrough shows what you can do, but not yet what you can reliably repeat. Likewise, a difficult day is useful information about what still breaks down, not a verdict on your character. As both your high and low points improve, your average performance rises, and your former best can become part of your normal.

Key Strategies and Action Steps

Map Your Performance Range

Choose one area of life and describe your A-game and C-game using specific, observable actions—not broad labels such as “disciplined” or “healthy.” Review recent examples of strong and weak performance, and notice what you usually do in between.

Work on Both Ends of the Range

• Expand the front: Take on a specific challenge just beyond your current normal to develop new skills and capabilities.
• Raise the back: Reduce recurring mistakes and make bad-day behavior less costly, less frequent, or shorter-lived.

Make New Strengths Repeatable

Treat a new peak as evidence that a performance is possible, not proof that it is your new baseline. After a strong performance, note what helped—such as preparation, sleep, starting earlier, or removing distractions.

Repeat the behavior under ordinary conditions, then gradually test it when tired, stressed, frustrated, or less motivated. Put new knowledge into practice: learning a method matters only when it changes what you reliably do.

Target the Biggest Recurring Weakness

Identify the behavior that causes the most damage or happens most often—for example, avoiding work, impulsive spending, overeating, or reacting defensively. Look for triggers and early warning signs, then decide in advance on a simple minimum response.

Where possible, make the unwanted behavior harder to repeat. Adjust your environment, limit access to temptations, or create space before responding. Prepare for predictable disruptions, such as travel or stressful work periods.

Build Minimum Routines That Survive Bad Days

Choose a realistic fallback action, such as completing one important task, returning to your routine the next day, or pausing a heated conversation until you can respond clearly.

Measure progress by faster recovery as well as by fewer or milder setbacks.

Track Progress and Setbacks

For one chosen area, review the last month or two and identify three examples each of strong and weak performance. Choose one A-game behavior to develop and one C-game behavior to reduce.

Track whether the new skill becomes more common and whether the old weakness becomes less frequent, less intense, or easier to recover from. Reassess your range once your former best becomes more ordinary or your former worst is no longer a regular pattern.

Central Recommendation

Alternate between reaching for a new level and strengthening the habits that make your progress dependable. Focus on one area of life at a time rather than trying to overhaul everything at once.

Presenter: Daniel Barada Source/framework: Jared Tendler’s Inchworm Theory, discussed in The Mental Game of Poker