The Mundanity of Excellence
When we see great feats of excellence on the Olympic stage, we automatically assume corresponding great feats of efforts and superhuman talent behind them. Daniel Chambliss' longitudinal and cross-sectional research into all levels of swimmers, from junior to world class, across a few years make for an unusually rigorous study into the ingredients of excellence.
The few insights I gleaned are:
- Excellence = technique + discipline + attitude
At the highest levels, everyone is putting in effort. It is not the differentiator between the best and the rest. The difference lies more in the quality of their techniques, discipline and attitude. For instance, always touching the ends of the pool with 2 hands for breaststroke, always swimming at near-competition intensity during practice, turning up for practice on time, and being able to enjoy practice
- Excellence is the culmination of small, seemingly mundane actions
Even the motivation itself is mundane. The best swimmers are motivated not by some far out Olympic goal, but by the next meet, impressing their coach, feeling stronger etc. It is the compounding of all these small wins over time without interruption that makes for long-term excellence.
You can read the original paper here: https://fermatslibrary.com/s/the-mundanity-of-excellence-an-ethnographic-report-on-stratification-and-olympic-swimmers