20 Feb /17

Improvement

Improvement - Word of the day - EVS Translations
Improvement – Word of the day – EVS Translations

At the beginning of the New Year, most of us have set lists of things that would like to change or do better. Undoubtedly, there is a certain amount of adrenaline involved in new beginnings and resolutions. And it feels like a march where all participants are carrying huge posters with slogans, painted in the vivid colors, of their plan for the year ahead.

Then we are one month in the year, and might just take down the festive decoration, tuck it in a box and get back to the familiar “I don’t – have- time/desire/money -for-anything” daily routine. Yeah, resolutions and big steps tend to be overwhelming.

The thing is, we have so many responsibilities and pressure, that adding up to the list is widely considered as a bad move that in the end will not do us any good. On the other hand, not doing any new things or the lack of activities that are good for our physical and mental well-being will most definitely push us to some kind of despair.

The trick is to do only a small effort for ridiculously short time, but to be consistent in it. Do it for one minute, but every day at the same time!

That is quite the concept behind the Japanese kaizen, that literally means ‘change for the better.’ Kaizen consists of two characters – kai, ‘change’ and zen, which stands for ‘good’ in Japanese.

Usually the term is associated with implementing new business practices for improvement and reorganization of production and work efficiency.

While in the traditional model of work, there is a long time between the concept development and the project execution, kaizen focuses on small steps for the daily processes and stimulates experiment, while teaching how to spot and eliminate waste.

And in English, we have the not-so-philosophical continuous improvement phrase.

The word improvement entered the English vocabulary circa mid 15th century, formed within the language, loaned from French, and stemming from the Latin prode ‘advantageous.’
The early spelling of emprowment was influenced by the French emprover ‘to turn to profit’ and originally especially related to exploitation of land.

The word firstly appeared in print in the official records of the English Parliament, circa 1450:

“That the Treasurer of England for the time being, has the free disposition and enprowment, for the Kings availe, of all such Wardes and Marriages, &c. as he had before the first day of this present Parliament”.

The meaning of ‘profit and increase of income,’ was firstly recorded in 1478, in the Letters and Papers of the landowner Sir John Paston.

And when comes to self-improvement and the process of becoming better, the first use comes from the 1620s, for example in the Ten sermons of the Bishop of Lincoln, Robert Sanderson: “That he might thereby encourage us, so to labour the improuement of those good things in us, as to make our selves capable of greater rewards.”

Influenced by the synonym prove, the spelling with -v became common by the end of the 17th century and the modern sense of ‘making better’ became the norm.

Follow the best recipe for continuous self-improvement – become a better version of yourself by mastering one thing at a time.