If you want to do something extraordinary you have to embrace the ordinary. Extraordinary accomplishments are always founded on the back of very ordinary daily practices.
From a distance we rarely see the ordinary that goes into something extraordinary. We only see the result of ordinary. We see the winner coming across the line. We see the finished piece of art. We see the movie in the theater. We see the PhD certificate hanging on the wall. We see the astronaut in space. We see the finely tuned performance by the legendary rock band. We see all of these things and we think how nice it would be to produce, create, or accomplish something extraordinary.
But what we don’t see are the thousands of hours doing ordinary things that led to that moment or that masterpiece or that performance. And this becomes a trap. The trap is that we think extraordinary just happens. The trap is that we think extraordinary may be reserved for “others” who can “just do” the extraordinary things we are witnessing. The trap is that we become so completely focused on the extraordinary outcome in front of us that we forget about the ordinary actions responsible for it.
There is however one thing that is extraordinary in the process and that is an extraordinary commitment to the ordinary. Those who embrace the ordinary in an extraordinary way will do extraordinary things. Those who embrace the process with vigor, intent, consistency and an absolutely unbending and unwavering commitment will do extraordinary things.
