By Dallin Hendry
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act, but a habit.”
This year, like many other people do around January, I decided that I was going to finally improve my health. I signed up for a running and weight training class, I bought a gym membership, I signed up for a sprint triathlon this May, and I started swimming and biking. I thought that I would be at the peak of health in a few weeks. I was dreadfully wrong.
I could barely run half a mile, I was choking on water after one minute of swimming, I had to take a break shortly into my planned 30-minute bike ride. I thought I was a failure and would never be prepared for my first triathlon. It took an essay and wake up call to remind me about how excellence in any habit depends on how much mundanity you are willing to accept in your life.
The Mundanity of Excellence
In 1989, Daniel F. Chambliss spent time observing Olympic and local swimmers to try and see what differentiated excellent from average athletes. He found 3 key principles from his observations that I believe can be applied to any habit we seek to build in our lives.
Excellence Requires Qualitative Differentiation
The first observation he made was that some swimmers were making the mistake that I was. Excellent swimmers were not putting in quantitatively more effort but qualitatively more effort. This means that they were not moving their arms faster, kicking their legs more, or swimming further. Instead, they were spending time getting themselves closer to the water, perfecting their strokes, and improving their kick-off against the wall.
We achieve excellence in any habit through qualitative improvement. Are you working out longer, or making sure that your workout is the most effective? Are you meditating for 3 hours a day, or are you ensuring that you can perfect one clear moment of stillness? Small qualitative differences, over time, lead to excellent and perfect habits.
Talent does not lead to Excellence
Every four years, we see an amazing display of athleticism, strength, and power while watching certain Olympic events. We are prone, after watching a phenomenal performance, to argue that it is simply a “superhuman” with insane talent that we could never hope to have. What we do not see is the past four years of habits and practice leading to this one display of “talent.” In reality, the amount of talent needed for athletic success seems to be strikingly low.
Daniel makes the case that most Olympic champions overcome problems such as polio, accidents, injury while becoming these amazing athletes. Talent is truly just what people do in the background. While building habits, remember that the value of that habit does not lie in the excellent display of it, but in the building of it day by day.
The Mundanity of Excellence
The crux of Daniel’s essay lies in his last point, that excellence is mundane. Athletes drill the same small habit day by day. Musicians learning a complicated piece will play one measure over and over until it is perfected. The same lies in building any habit. It requires mundane acts day by day in order to build it.
Similarly, motivation is mundane. Athletes are not focused on the Olympics in four years. They are looking forward to their next event or looking to the day that they finally master a skill. When we are trying to work on anything in life, we should not be looking to a reward or motivation years in the future but how it will benefit us in this moment or this day. We should be present and mindful of the habits that we are building.
Maintaining Mundanity is the Key Psychological Challenge
These points, at first glance, may seem discouraging or overly simple to many people. This may be the whole point. Our lives and habits become interesting and excellent through the mundane ritual acts that we perform daily. I no longer try to be the fastest runner, swimmer, or biker. I try every day to have the best form while running, the right position for breathing while swimming, and the correct body position while biking. Similarly, my goals to be a better spouse, father, student, and employee are reflected in my mundane qualitative habits that I build day by day.
“Consistency is what transforms average into excellence.”
REFERENCES
Chambliss, D. F. (1989). The mundanity of excellence: An ethnographic report on stratification and Olympic swimmers. Sociological theory, 7(1), 70-86.