Excellence is Mundane

The grander we make our focus, the harder it is to make progress.

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Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills or activities, each one learned or stumbled upon, which have been carefully drilled into habit and then are fitted together in a synthesized whole.

Daniel Chambliss

The midpoint of the year is often when we realize how woefully behind we are on the plans we made for ourselves in January.

We all have grand plans for a better future, but when we look back after several months or years, we’re usually no closer to where we want to be.

We grasp for large sweeping changes to transform our lives, but the results are usually fleeting at best, if not altogether nonexistent.

We want to be better, but with every day that passes the status quo notches another small victory.

Too big to fail

The enemy of excellence is inconsistency.

Most of us don’t have a hard time dreaming up an exciting vision for the future or finding the time/energy to take at least one big step toward it.

However, these big visions and large efforts make inconsistency the norm.

Big goals feel like they require massive change and lots of time or energy.

Knowing progress will require lots of energy, we put it off and wait until we’re feeling up to it or when everything else in our lives quiets down.

Inevitably, none of these things ever happen and soon enough months go by without doing anything at all.

We’re so busy focusing on something incredible and transformative that we never get started.

Excellence is mundane

The most incredible things are achieved through the most boring methods.

Scientific breakthroughs, disruptive companies, physical feats, and every version of meaningful excellence stem from years of small imperceptible learnings and improvements.

Even those with grand visions had to narrow their focus and start small to make any progress.

There is no switch we can flip to drastically change our lives.

Regardless of the pursuit, excellence is a culmination of mundanity.

Change and progress come from hundreds or thousands of small decisions made with one objective in mind.

These decisions and changes on their own, no matter how large, don’t amount to any meaningful progress.

It’s only through the combination of all of these habits and decisions over a long period of time that the results become obvious.

This type of excellence is not only impressive but sustainable.

It’s not a flash in the pan or a hot streak, it just becomes who we are.

With this approach, we’re not constantly trying to muster the energy to do something arduous to make a big change.

Instead, we’re slowly learning and becoming a bit better each day until suddenly our average day is something we only could have dreamed about a few years prior.

Prompts

1. What are some of the things you hoped to accomplish this year? Are you on track?

2. If you had to choose one goal or objective to optimize your life around what would it be?

3. Looking forward to the rest of this week, what small mundane changes would you make in support of this goal?

Deep Dive

• The Mundanity of Excellence - Daniel Chambliss

  • Report from a sociology professor who studied top-tier swimmers. (h/t James Clear for sharing)

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Thanks for reading! I’ll see you next Sunday.

Kevin