Excellence Is Mundane
Posted onDaniel Chambliss is a distinguished researcher, and a passage from his work was shared with me over time. This has stuck with me over time on what it takes to be excellent. As a mediocre swimmer at best, my density is more suited for sinking than floating, however I really related to this analysis of elite swimmers and what seperates them.
Excellence is mundane. 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. There is nothing extraordinary or superhuman in any one of those actions; only the fact that they are done consistently and correctly, and all together, produce excellence.
When a swimmer learns a proper flip turn in the freestyle races, she will swim the race a bit faster; then a streamlined push off from the wall, with the arms squeezed together over the head, and a little faster; then how to place the hands in the water so no air is cupped in them; then how to lift them over the water; then how to lift weights to properly build strength, and how to eat the right foods, and to wear the best suits for racing, and on and on.
Each of those tasks seems small in itself, but each allows the athlete to swim a bit faster. And having learned and consistently practiced all of them together, and many more besides, the swimmer may compete in the Olympic Games... the little things really do count.
Mundanity of Excellence by Daniel Chambliss. Published in 1989.