Sterling Terrell

recovering economist

On Being Consistently Good

On Being Consistently Good

It is not that being consistently good at something is hard.

Being consistent with anything is difficult.

Then when you add in performing at a certain level – well fugetaboutit…

This is not only true for comedy. You can see this easily in sports too.

Any NFL team can beat any other NFL team on a given Sunday. One team plays flat, the other shines, and then you get a crazy upset that everyone can’t believe. But what team can play at the highest level week in and week out?

This is obvious to me in golf too. PGA champions can have an off weekend and barely make the cut. But few can show up at every tournament and play at the highest level. Look at who finishes near the top ten in every tournament. I touched on this here in regard to Phil Mickelson.

Here is a masterful piece on how to be great.

And you guessed it.

Greatness is spelled C-O-N-S-I-S-T-A-N-T.

THE CONSISTENT WORK enhanced my act. I learned a lesson: It was easy to be great. Every entertainer has a night when everything is clicking. These nights are accidental and statistical: Like lucky cards in poker, you can count on them occurring over time. What was hard was to be good, consistently good, night after night, no matter what the abominable circumstances.

-Steve Martin, Born Standing Up (Amazon)

How To Be Great?

How To Be Great?

Big question, right? How to be great?

Blogger, and developer Steph Smith has a fantastic take on this with respect to creative work.

The punchline is this:

To be great, just be good. Repeatedly.

I like that. There’s no wishing for a miracle or fate to sweep you away. There is only showing up every day and forming a habit.

(Part of the secret is that these things compound.)

3 of my favorite quotes from the piece:

Interestingly enough, I realized that it was not the sporadic highs that were exceptional, but instead the long hauls; the sequences of events that seemed minimal at each juncture, but compounded into major gains. This led me to think further about what greatness truly means. I’ve come to learn that it’s not about overnight successes or flashes of excellence, but periods of repeatable habits.

The best things in life often aren’t miracles, but well-thought out approaches that are sustainable. The same thing is true with businesses, marriages, and just about anything with repeatable elements. If you invest time into solving for what leads to success continuously, you will reap those benefits for years to come. 

So if you’re still asking the question, “How do I become great in life?”, I would ask you to reframe the question as “How do I become good in life” or even “How do I become decent” and focus on developing those habits to repeat over time. Transform these habits to be your baseline.

Sterling Terrell