Hal Mumme, architect of college football's "Air Raid" offense, built his success on the philosophy that winners "have a great capacity for boredom."
In other words, you must be willing to come in every single day and work on the simple things. Simple things like...
- Eating broccoli & chicken over pizza
- Working your barbell lifting technique with a PVC pipe or empty barbell every single day during warmups
- Writing a handwritten thank you card to someone in your network
These are the BIG FLASHY actions that get our heart racing and blood rushing. Our adrenaline isn't going to spike when we practice our sales presentation over and over and over again alone in our office.
Our excitement level isn't going through the roof by showing up to the gym and doing the same warmup and barbell repetition that we've done the last 30 days in a row.
It's not "fun" to do the boring, simple steps every day.
However, as Mumme believed - and so do I - that our ability to embrace the boredom of the grind determines how great our opportunity to seize the glory.
Success is always sexy - but the road to reaching it is anything but. It's boring. It's long. Many days it feels like you're Bill Murray living another "Groundhog Day."
Competitors keep showing up.
They aren't chasing the adrenaline rush of new when they know they need to keep working the mundane to win.
Want to know the best way to embrace the mundane?
Focus on how you're going to maximize this day's moment the most you can.
When you think about all the times "you've done this same thing before," or worry about "how much longer I have to keep doing this same boring thing," you'll lose focus on the most important moment - which is today.
If you want the excitement and rush of victory, be willing to build in the boredom.