How Benjamin Franklin Made Self-Improvement a Science

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Our goal is to explore the science of self-improvement and grow an audience of people that want to do the same.

With it being close to the New Year and around the time most people are starting to set their intentions for 2026, we wanted to pop back up in your inbox (sorry it took us so long) and share the story of how American founding-father Benjamin Franklin invented a scientific method to reach perfection 300 years ago.

(This article was originally published last year but we had about 10 readers at that point so most of you won’t have seen this!)

Enjoy…

How Benjamin Franklin Made Self-Improvement A Science

In this email, we want to share the unusual ‘self-tracking’ system that helped Benjamin Franklin become one of the truly great men of history, and propose a solution to the problem with much of the self-improvement world. 

These lessons are relevant to anyone, from athletes chasing new personal records to professionals striving for career growth, or anyone simply wanting to live a life that aligns more closely with their values.

Benjamin Franklin and the Quest for Moral Perfection

Benjamin Franklin, born in 1706, had 16 siblings and only attended school until the age of 10, yet by the end of his life had become not only one of America’s founding fathers but also a celebrated scientist and inventor, a wildly popular writer and philosopher, and a trusted state diplomat. 

(oh, and he spoke French, Italian, Spanish, and Latin.)

There are all sorts of reasons Franklin excelled so much—his crazy work ethic, sharp mind, and agreeable personality being just a few of them. 

But one particularly interesting fact about Franklin’s life recently caught our attention... 

Around the age of 20, Franklin started developing a journaling system that he believed would help him achieve ‘moral perfection.’

Here’s how it worked:

Franklin picked 13 virtues that he felt were necessary for perfect character. These virtues were temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity, and humility. 

Franklin built a simple chart with columns representing days of the week and one row per virtue. Every evening, Franklin would think about his behaviour during that day and mark any virtues he had failed to embody with a dot in that square. Each week he would reset the chart. The goal was to have as few dots as possible, and over time the visual representation of dots helped him identify patterns and refine his habits. 

Franklin knew moral perfection was unattainable, but that wasn’t the point. The act of striving for it made him a better person. 

And here’s what makes his approach so powerful: it wasn’t just philosophical—it was practical.

By quantifying his personal growth, he made self-improvement concrete, something he could see and measure.

Even now, over 300 years later, Franklin’s approach feels revolutionary.

Why?

Because self-improvement today still has a branding problem…

The Problem With & Science of “Self-Improvement”

The ability to genuinely change is one of the rarest and most valuable skills in the world. 

Especially this time of year, we all start to realize that if we can just find it within ourselves to make some meaningful changes to our actions, habits, and thoughts - we could genuinely change our life for the better.

But for many, “self-improvement” or “self-help” suggests cliche slogans, vague advice, and potentially shady gurus with expensive courses.

And because a lot of us are worried about being judged based on the above stereotypes, it feels like a passion and drive for self-improvement is an undervalued trait to have.

We think that’s also partially because the concept of self-improvement is so abstract, it’s just so hard to figure out what actually works and how to track it. 

Compare purely physical improvement to ‘self-improvement’…

When your friend tells you they’re going to the gym to work out their back and biceps, that sounds totally reasonable. 

But if you tell your friend in return that you’re going to take a few hours to do some ‘emotional stability’ reps, or work out your ‘communication skills’, you’re going to get some strange looks. 

Part of the problem is that progress in the first category is much more measurable than the second.

Nobody debates whether going to the gym works because we can measure progress. You lift heavier weights. Your muscles grow. The results are visible, measurable, and undeniable.

On the other hand, self-improvement feels almost impossible to quantify and track. 

But why can’t it be? 

It will never be as simple as sticking a tape measure around your biceps every few weeks, but to not track it at all just because it’s a little more complicated is a mistake. 

Franklin already proved hundreds of years ago that it can be as simple as a few minutes of journaling each night, and with the advantages of modern technology, we’re set up to do far more powerful things for a similar amount of work. 

Today, we have access to powerful tools—apps, wearables, and trackers—that make collecting and analyzing this kind of data easier and more impactful than ever. 

One of our goals with What Counts is to help solve this problem and figure out how to turn self-improvement from an idea into a science.

Here’s a simple example of one way I try to do that in my own life…

Do I do what I say I’ll do?

As humans, if we say we’ll do something, it’s nice to feel like we’re the kind of people that will follow through on it.  

I decided to quantify this in the following way:

• Each night I write down everything I want to do the next day in a spreadsheet

• The next day I record what % of those things I actually do

• That % tells me how good I am at following through on commitments

• If that % goes up, I know I’m making progress

This method isn’t perfect, but it’s already enabled me to see my self-improvement as less of a mental exercise and something real that I can track over time. 

Conclusion

At What Counts, one of our goals is to figure out how to turn the process of self-improvement into a measurable science. What happens when we quantify the previously unquantified?

Whether you’re training for your next PR, sharpening your mental focus, or mastering a new skill, we want to make self-improvement something that you can actually track and optimize, with a system built entirely around you. 

The ability to change is one of the greatest skills we have. And when we treat it as a science, improvement stops being a guessing game—it becomes inevitable.

What will you track today that counts tomorrow?

Start small: pick one thing you want to improve and find a way to track it. It could be as simple as Franklin’s nightly reflection—or as detailed as a digital habit tracker. The key is to measure it, so you know it’s working.

Until next week, 

Benji and Jacob

P.S. On the topic of the New Year, one of our goals for 2026 is to send more regular emails. Keep an eye out for them in your inbox.)

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