How to Be Great? Just Be Good, Repeatably

the “search” for greatness is often misguided, perhaps because what we imagine to be great, is in fact not that great at all. Instead of speculating what may make you great, get out there and start doing. Do not look for perfection or even greatness, but instead signs of “good” and start making tangible progress.

Understand that in order to achieve the things you want in life, you’ll need to establish a habit of progression. You literally need to become good at being decent.

On top of consistency, greatness comes from asking the right questions and iterating to learn what inputs drive favourable outputs, and ideally why. “Greatness” comes from an identified or researched process that when followed, has some degree of certainty in the outcome.

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.

Your actions and results will not always reflect your intentions, but as you move towards “greatness”, you should have a better idea of what inputs actually deliver output. You’ll still make mistakes﹣as we all do﹣but you’ll have a better grasp on what is more likely to work out.

On your journey to greatness, you need to fall in love with the process which includes many local minima and maxima. Staying consistent and pushing through both of these continuously is what will truly differentiate you from those that are simply “good” and isolate you as one of the few that are “great’.

If you don’t have the opportunity to “do great things”, focus on consistently achieving small wins. These small things in fact do not need to be done in a great way, but a good way, repeatably. In fact, I would advise not to focus on perfection, as it is often the enemy of the successful.

a specific search for success can be problematic and instead of looking for unsustainable shortcuts in life, it’s much more effective (and healthy) to aim for continuous habits that bring you success as a byproduct, not as the end goal.

I’ve come to learn that it’s not about overnight successes or flashes of excellence, but periods of repeatable habits. Perhaps “great’, is just “good”, but repeatable.