The key difference between people who have attained mastery and become highly successful, and those who haven’t, is not because of the lack of talent or skill. At some point, it boils down to who can handle the boredom of repetitive practice each day. An athlete has to keep doing the same sets over and over, day in and day out. A musician has to keep practicing their scales until it becomes ridiculously monotonous—and then do it again the next day. A craftsman has to keep building and writers have to get their “butts in the chair” and write—regardless of any writer’s block. You won’t always stay “amped up” about working on your goals, regardless of how enthusiastic you were when you first began, or even how much you love what you do. Boredom happens to everyone.
It doesn’t matter how talented or smart you are—if you only do the work when it is exciting or convenient, you’ll never be consistent enough to achieve extraordinary results. In order to be extraordinary, you must be willing to do the ordinary stuff, an extra number of times—and then do it some more.
Decide what you want to accomplish, set up a schedule of the actions you will take, and stick with it enough times until it becomes a habit. Find an accountability partner and set up both consequences and rewards to reinforce productive behaviors—make the consequences painful enough that you’ll avoid them and make the rewards pleasurable enough to draw you toward them. To be exceptional do the right things again and again. And fall in love with boredom!
