Are you currently giving your best effort? Are you currently trying the best method?

You+1 means going out of your comfort zone. It means pushing yourself to be a better version of your yesterday self.

This theory can be used on yourself. It helps if someone has laid out the roadmap for whatever it is you are trying to achieve, but sometimes a roadmap simply doesn’t exist.

The alternative is stagnation.

In pedagogy, there is a famous theory called the Zone of Proximal Development that was developed by a man who goes by the name of Vygotsky. If my memory serves me well, there is where the student is currently at, and there is where they could be, what’s in between is the Zone of Proximal Development.

It’s the teacher’s role to somehow get the student from A to B, but of course B is a moving target. B being a moving target isn’t the issue, the issue is what you can do to bridge the gap in any given situation.

One way to do this, at least in theory, is to challenge the students with a +1, something that is only just out of their current ability.

Either way, we are at risk of stagnating if we don’t constantly have a you+1 to work on. If you find you are getting stuck, you are either not trying hard enough (so try harder) or you are trying the wrong thing (so try another approach).

Beware the stagnation.