HOW TO ACHIEVE EXCELLENCE
In our recent How to Set Up Your Year for Success Free Event , we shared a quote – possibly our favourite quote of ALL TIME!
It’s from Coach Christopher Sommer, who trains elite athletes, in the book Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris. It’s equally relevant for music producers because it points out the single thing that holds most people back from achieving excellence, and how to blast through that obstacle. Here it is.
“Dealing with the temporary frustration of not making progress is an integral part of the path towards excellence. In fact, it is essential and something that every single elite athlete has had to learn to deal with. If the pursuit of excellence was easy, everyone would do it. In fact, this impatience in dealing with frustration is the primary reason that most people fail to achieve their goals. Unreasonable expectations time wise, resulting in unnecessary frustration, due to a perceived feeling of failure.
Achieving the extraordinary is not a linear process. The secret is to show up and do the work and go home. A blue-collar work ethic married to indomitable will. It is literally that simple. Nothing interferes. Nothing can sway you from your purpose. Once the decision is made, simply refuse to budge. Refuse to compromise. And accept that quality long-term results require quality long-term focus. No emotion, no drama, no beating yourself up over small bumps in the road. Learn to enjoy and appreciate the process.
This is especially important because you’re going to spend far more time on the actual journey than with those all too brief moments of triumph at the end. Certainly celebrate the moments of triumph when they occur. More importantly, learn from defeats when they happen. In fact, if you are not encountering defeat on a fairly regular basis, you are not trying hard enough. And absolutely refuse to accept less than your best. Throw out a timeline, it will take what it takes.
And my favourite part. If the commitment is to a long-term goal, and not to a series of smaller intermediate goals, then only one decision needs to be made and adhered to: Clear, simple, straightforward. Much easier to maintain than to make small decision after small decision to stay the course when dealing with each step along the way. This provides far too many opportunities to inadvertently drift from your chosen goal. The single decision is one of the most powerful tools in the tool box.”
– Coach Christopher Sommer from Tools of Titans by Tim Ferris.
