If You Want to Get Better at Something, Get Comfortable Saying...

8 phrases that will help you on your journey toward excellence

Mastery isn’t built on hacks, hustle, or hype.

It’s built on something quieter, and can be much trickier to sustain: humility, honesty, and the courage to keep going when it’s not easy. But if you can stay curious, show up consistently, and be kind to yourself along the way, you’ll move in the right direction.

Slowly. Steadily. Meaningfully.

I’ve written about this stuff for a long time. Below, I’ve done by best to boil down some core principles into simple phrases, guideposts that can help you stay on the path:

The truth is that nobody wakes up feeling great and ready to crush it every day. Life can be great. Life can be hard. Life can be both at the same time.

The work is accepting your feelings and taking them along for the ride. It’s about showing up as best you can. Day after day. Week after week. Month after month.

It’s wild how many people obsess about the last 0.1% of performance while ignoring the first 99.9%. There will always be fads and elaborate nonsense—and they will always be distractions.

Every activity has a set of tried and true fundamentals that actually make a difference. They aren’t the bright and shiny objects, but they work. Focus there.

Caring deeply is a courageous act; it makes you vulnerable because things won’t always go your way. Caring deeply is also key to a rich, meaningful, and textured life.

You can have all the talent in the world, but it doesn’t matter if you don’t care.

You don’t magically find your passion; you build it, brick by brick. Expecting to find a pursuit where everything clicks from the get-go and is perfect from there is a surefire way to never be happy or fulfilled.

Stay curious. Follow your interests. Hone a craft. Passion emerges over years, not seconds.

If you think accomplishing something will suddenly change your inner life, you are in for a rude awakening. You never arrive. Wherever you are, the goalpost is always 10 yards down field.

It is important to let go of illusions about results. Dig where your feet are. Learn to find joy and meaning in the process.

Research shows that motivation, health, and performance are all contagious. The people with whom you surround yourself shape you. We are all mirrors reflecting onto one another. Every ancient wisdom tradition and every modern science points toward this truth.

You’ve got to learn to have your own back. Doing hard things like showing up when you don’t feel like it is integral to building excellence and meaning. But you’ve got to be kind to yourself, too. If you aren’t, your discipline is not going to be sustainable.

Define your own version of success, otherwise someone will do it for you. Every time. Everyone wants to be successful, but few people can define what that means for them. If you know your values and build a life around them, that is true success.

The path to real growth is rarely linear. It’s full of starts, stops, and stumbles. Show up. Have your own back. Define your own measure of success. Don’t do it alone. Be someone who is willing to learn. To ask questions. To try again (and again and again).