If You Want to Get Better, Get Comfortable Saying…
Mastery isn’t built on hacks, hustle-culture, or hype. It’s built on something quieter, and often more difficult 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.
We’ve written about this stuff for a long time. Something we are asked about often is reminders—core principles, simple phrases, and guideposts that help us stay on the path.
Here are a handful:
If you want to improve at something, get comfortable saying, ‘I focus on consistency over intensity.‘ I show up.
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.
If Brad had to feel great every time he went to the gym to train, he would have trained about 29 days last year, not 290. It’s crucial to move beyond the misconception that you need to feel super motivated to get started. You get started, and motivation often follows. It’s one of the truest things we know, and it is critical for sustainable progress—which is beautiful but also a slog.
(A beautiful slog!)
If you want to get better at something, get comfortable saying: I focus on fundamentals over fads; I nail the basics.
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. Steve writes about this often in fitness, where every six months there is a new trend that the influencers herd around—HIIT, 4×4, Tabata intervals, and on and on. But it’s not just fitness. It’s every pursuit, activity, and craft. Influencers have the time and energy to focus on fads because the people actually doing the work are too busy focusing on the foundation and fundamentals.
If you want to improve at something, get comfortable saying, ‘I am committed and care, even when it’s hard.
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. We see this in all the world-class performers we coach. The best of the best care so deeply about what they do, but they also have strong support systems and internal resources to draw upon to keep their caring sustainable.
If you want to improve at something, get comfortable saying, ‘I know it takes time. I focus on progress, not perfection.’
Some clichés are clichés for a reason. This is one of them. You don’t magically find your passion; you build it, brick by brick. Expecting to find a pursuit where everything clicks from the beginning is a surefire way to miss the fulfillment and happiness that can come from one’s pursuit. Stay curious. Follow your interests. Hone a craft. Passion emerges over years, not days and seconds.
If you want to improve at something, get comfortable saying, ‘I focus on the process; the process is the point.‘
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 downfield. It is important to let go of illusions about results. Dig where your feet are. Learn to find joy and meaning in the process.
If you want to improve at something, get comfortable saying, ‘I probably cannot do this alone.‘
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 point toward this truth. It’s a truth we (Brad and Steve) know too. It’s why we’ve been working together for over a decade. The core of our engine is our collaborative partnership. It makes the work more fun, sustainable, and ultimately, better.
If you want to improve at something, get comfortable saying, ‘I hold myself accountable without beating myself up.‘
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. All of the best performers we’ve coached are both extraordinary badasses, and they’ve learned to have their own back along the way. Without the latter, the former isn’t sustainable.
If you want to get better at something, get comfortable saying: Success may look different for me than for you.
Define your own version of success; otherwise, someone will do it for you. 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 willing to learn. To ask questions. To try again (and again and again).
– Brad and Steve
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