“We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence Then, Is Not An Act But A Habit”- Aristotle, c.340 BC.

Uvie Ugono
Aug 23, 2017 · 13 min read
Aristotle, c340 BC

“We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence Then, Is Not An Act But A Habit”- Aristotle, c.340 BC.

He nailed it with that one sentence. The secret to excellence and high achievement, told to us over 2,300 years ago. And yet, it’s the one thing that at least 95% of people fail to do. Be consistent. At anything. Without consistency, it is impossible to achieve success.

The most empowering part of Aristotle’s quote is that excellence can be achieved by anybody, in any chosen field. My life changed when I finally understood what he meant, and put it into practice, which didn’t happen until well into my 30’s.

My first love was Athletics, it was the dominant theme of my life from the age of 16, until well into my 20’s, before injury forced me to retire, without ever reaching anywhere near my full potential. All that training, 6 days a week, every week for over a decade, and nothing to show for it. All those hopes and dreams, crushed. I was a failure.

I would spend countless hours watching videos of the best sprinters of the time — Maurice Greene, Ato Bolden, Donovan Bailey, Dennis Mitchell. I so desperately wanted to be as good as them, to run under 10 seconds consistently, to be challenging for medals at all the major championships. I was convinced that if I studied them for long enough, I’d be able to see what it was that they were doing that I wasn’t, and copy it. “It’s their technique”, I exclaimed excitedly, in a moment of lucidity, my lightbulb moment. I’d finally figured it out, it was their biomechanics (technique) which they all shared in common, that enabled them to run so fast.

I knew what I had to do, I had to change my biomechanics to be like theirs if I wanted to run as fast as them. Easier said than done, they made it seem so easy, yet I could never do it. I’d go into a race and try to focus on my technique, and would end up running slower than before. It didn’t work. I never ran quicker than 10.3 seconds. It was soul destroying.

It was long after I’d retired from the sport that I finally figured out why I never could improve my technique and run much faster as a result. I was not consistent in practicing my technique. I didn’t understand that I had to practice my technique every single day, to inculcate it into every single warm up, every single sprint drill, every single training run, over a long period of time, for it to become second nature. Instead, I’d practice my technique once or twice a week, for a month or two, and when I wasn’t getting any results, I’d stop. I was inconsistent. So I didn’t improve. I decided that I would never make the same mistake again, and would take the lesson learned into my business career and life in general. I’d be consistent at everything I did.

Practice makes perfect, it really does.

The building block of consistency are your daily rituals, the things that you do every single day. The time you wake up, the time you go to bed, your daily workout. Every single highly successful person has daily rituals, without exception. These rituals build consistency, which carries across into everything they do. By contrast, most people have no daily rituals at all, because they don’t realize the importance of having them. Ask yourselves a simple question — what time do you go to bed each night? The vast majority of people could not give a definite and specific answer, because it varies from night to night. Its inconsistent. Unsurprisingly, most people find it difficult to wake up at the same time every morning. Some mornings, the alarm clock goes off and they get up immediately, other mornings they hit the snooze button and sleep for longer.

The inconsistency of going to bed at different times each night leads to an inconsistency in what time you wake up each morning, which in turn leads to an inconsistency in your level of performance at your job, business or School. You become average and never achieve excellence.

I spend at least 3 hours daily reading — renewable energy specific news, biographies of great business leaders, personal development books. It’s one of my daily rituals, and I would say this one singular ritual has had by far the most profound impact on my life and level of success today. For many years, I’d hear all the great business and political leaders talk about the importance of reading daily, and I always promised I’d do the same thing, but could never manage it.

When I read Aristotle’s quote, it suddenly hit me. I had to develop a definite habit, which would enable me to find 3 hours a day of time to read, on top of everything else I’m doing. I had to wake up at 3am every morning, which would give me the time to be able to read for 3 hours and keep up with the rest of my day. So I did, and I still do, every single day including weekends. It’s the single most transformative thing I’ve ever done in my life.

The Team GB cycling team had an exceptional London 2012 Olympics, sweeping the board in most of the events in the velodrome. Unsurprisingly, most of their competitors were left wondering how it was that they could be so consistently brilliant across the board. The question was put to the Head Coach of the team, and he gave a response that resonated deeply with me, and hit me like a jolt of lightening.

“Incremental Gains”, he said. Their entire strategy as a team was to maniacally focus on getting just a little bit better each day, every day. That’s it. No genius training schedule, or special equipment that the competition doesn’t have. Consistency! Doing the same thing over and over again, each and every day, and trying to get just a little bit better than the day before.

There’s very little a person cannot achieve if they Take Action, Consistently. Taking Action is a decision. Being consistent is a culture, honed by repetition.

Consistency transforms average into exceptional, and the best part is that it is something that we can all develop.

He nailed it with that one sentence. The secret to excellence and high achievement, told to us over 2,300 years ago. And yet, it’s the one thing that at least 95% of people fail to do. Be consistent. At anything. Without consistency, it is impossible to achieve success.

The most empowering part of Aristotle’s quote is that excellence can be achieved by anybody, in any chosen field. My life changed when I finally understood what he meant, and put it into practice, which didn’t happen until well into my 30’s.

My first love was Athletics, it was the dominant theme of my life from the age of 16, until well into my 20’s, before injury forced me to retire, without ever reaching anywhere near my full potential. All that training, 6 days a week, every week for over a decade, and nothing to show for it. All those hopes and dreams, crushed. I was a failure.

I would spend countless hours watching videos of the best sprinters of the time — Maurice Greene, Ato Bolden, Donovan Bailey, Dennis Mitchell. I so desperately wanted to be as good as them, to run under 10 seconds consistently, to be challenging for medals at all the major championships. I was convinced that if I studied them for long enough, I’d be able to see what it was that they were doing that I wasn’t, and copy it. “It’s their technique”, I exclaimed excitedly, in a moment of lucidity, my lightbulb moment. I’d finally figured it out, it was their biomechanics (technique) which they all shared in common, that enabled them to run so fast.

I knew what I had to do, I had to change my biomechanics to be like theirs if I wanted to run as fast as them. Easier said than done, they made it seem so easy, yet I could never do it. I’d go into a race and try to focus on my technique, and would end up running slower than before. It didn’t work. I never ran quicker than 10.3 seconds. It was soul destroying.

It was long after I’d retired from the sport that I finally figured out why I never could improve my technique and run much faster as a result. I was not consistent in practicing my technique. I didn’t understand that I had to practice my technique every single day, to inculcate it into every single warm up, every single sprint drill, every single training run, over a long period of time, for it to become second nature. Instead, I’d practice my technique once or twice a week, for a month or two, and when I wasn’t getting any results, I’d stop. I was inconsistent. So I didn’t improve. I decided that I would never make the same mistake again, and would take the lesson learned into my business career and life in general. I’d be consistent at everything I did.

Practice makes perfect, it really does.

The building block of consistency are your daily rituals, the things that you do every single day. The time you wake up, the time you go to bed, your daily workout. Every single highly successful person has daily rituals, without exception. These rituals build consistency, which carries across into everything they do. By contrast, most people have no daily rituals at all, because they don’t realize the importance of having them. Ask yourselves a simple question — what time do you go to bed each night? The vast majority of people could not give a definite and specific answer, because it varies from night to night. Its inconsistent. Unsurprisingly, most people find it difficult to wake up at the same time every morning. Some mornings, the alarm clock goes off and they get up immediately, other mornings they hit the snooze button and sleep for longer.

The inconsistency of going to bed at different times each night leads to an inconsistency in what time you wake up each morning, which in turn leads to an inconsistency in your level of performance at your job, business or School. You become average and never achieve excellence.

I spend at least 3 hours daily reading — renewable energy specific news, biographies of great business leaders, personal development books. It’s one of my daily rituals, and I would say this one singular ritual has had by far the most profound impact on my life and level of success today. For many years, I’d hear all the great business and political leaders talk about the importance of reading daily, and I always promised I’d do the same thing, but could never manage it.

When I read Aristotle’s quote, it suddenly hit me. I had to develop a definite habit, which would enable me to find 3 hours a day of time to read, on top of everything else I’m doing. I had to wake up at 3am every morning, which would give me the time to be able to read for 3 hours and keep up with the rest of my day. So I did, and I still do, every single day including weekends. It’s the single most transformative thing I’ve ever done in my life.

The Team GB cycling team had an exceptional London 2012 Olympics, sweeping the board in most of the events in the velodrome. Unsurprisingly, most of their competitors were left wondering how it was that they could be so consistently brilliant across the board. The question was put to the Head Coach of the team, and he gave a response that resonated deeply with me, and hit me like a jolt of lightening.

“Incremental Gains”, he said. Their entire strategy as a team was to maniacally focus on getting just a little bit better each day, every day. That’s it. No genius training schedule, or special equipment that the competition doesn’t have. Consistency! Doing the same thing over and over again, each and every day, and trying to get just a little bit better than the day before.

There’s very little a person cannot achieve if they Take Action, Consistently. Taking Action is a decision. Being consistent is a culture, honed by repetition.

Consistency transforms average into exceptional, and the best part is that it is something that we can all develop.onsistency is the Key to Success

“We Are What We Repeatedly Do. Excellence Then, Is Not An Act But A Habit”- Aristotle, c.340 BC.

He nailed it with that one sentence. The secret to excellence and high achievement, told to us over 2,300 years ago. And yet, it’s the one thing that at least 95% of people fail to do. Be consistent. At anything. Without consistency, it is impossible to achieve success.

The most empowering part of Aristotle’s quote is that excellence can be achieved by anybody, in any chosen field. My life changed when I finally understood what he meant, and put it into practice, which didn’t happen until well into my 30’s.

My first love was Athletics, it was the dominant theme of my life from the age of 16, until well into my 20’s, before injury forced me to retire, without ever reaching anywhere near my full potential. All that training, 6 days a week, every week for over a decade, and nothing to show for it. All those hopes and dreams, crushed. I was a failure.

I would spend countless hours watching videos of the best sprinters of the time — Maurice Greene, Ato Bolden, Donovan Bailey, Dennis Mitchell. I so desperately wanted to be as good as them, to run under 10 seconds consistently, to be challenging for medals at all the major championships. I was convinced that if I studied them for long enough, I’d be able to see what it was that they were doing that I wasn’t, and copy it. “It’s their technique”, I exclaimed excitedly, in a moment of lucidity, my lightbulb moment. I’d finally figured it out, it was their biomechanics (technique) which they all shared in common, that enabled them to run so fast.

I knew what I had to do, I had to change my biomechanics to be like theirs if I wanted to run as fast as them. Easier said than done, they made it seem so easy, yet I could never do it. I’d go into a race and try to focus on my technique, and would end up running slower than before. It didn’t work. I never ran quicker than 10.3 seconds. It was soul destroying.

It was long after I’d retired from the sport that I finally figured out why I never could improve my technique and run much faster as a result. I was not consistent in practicing my technique. I didn’t understand that I had to practice my technique every single day, to inculcate it into every single warm up, every single sprint drill, every single training run, over a long period of time, for it to become second nature. Instead, I’d practice my technique once or twice a week, for a month or two, and when I wasn’t getting any results, I’d stop. I was inconsistent. So I didn’t improve. I decided that I would never make the same mistake again, and would take the lesson learned into my business career and life in general. I’d be consistent at everything I did.

Practice makes perfect, it really does.

The building block of consistency are your daily rituals, the things that you do every single day. The time you wake up, the time you go to bed, your daily workout. Every single highly successful person has daily rituals, without exception. These rituals build consistency, which carries across into everything they do. By contrast, most people have no daily rituals at all, because they don’t realize the importance of having them. Ask yourselves a simple question — what time do you go to bed each night? The vast majority of people could not give a definite and specific answer, because it varies from night to night. Its inconsistent. Unsurprisingly, most people find it difficult to wake up at the same time every morning. Some mornings, the alarm clock goes off and they get up immediately, other mornings they hit the snooze button and sleep for longer.

The inconsistency of going to bed at different times each night leads to an inconsistency in what time you wake up each morning, which in turn leads to an inconsistency in your level of performance at your job, business or School. You become average and never achieve excellence.

I spend at least 3 hours daily reading — renewable energy specific news, biographies of great business leaders, personal development books. It’s one of my daily rituals, and I would say this one singular ritual has had by far the most profound impact on my life and level of success today. For many years, I’d hear all the great business and political leaders talk about the importance of reading daily, and I always promised I’d do the same thing, but could never manage it.

When I read Aristotle’s quote, it suddenly hit me. I had to develop a definite habit, which would enable me to find 3 hours a day of time to read, on top of everything else I’m doing. I had to wake up at 3am every morning, which would give me the time to be able to read for 3 hours and keep up with the rest of my day. So I did, and I still do, every single day including weekends. It’s the single most transformative thing I’ve ever done in my life.

The Team GB cycling team had an exceptional London 2012 Olympics, sweeping the board in most of the events in the velodrome. Unsurprisingly, most of their competitors were left wondering how it was that they could be so consistently brilliant across the board. The question was put to the Head Coach of the team, and he gave a response that resonated deeply with me, and hit me like a jolt of lightening.

“Incremental Gains”, he said. Their entire strategy as a team was to maniacally focus on getting just a little bit better each day, every day. That’s it. No genius training schedule, or special equipment that the competition doesn’t have. Consistency! Doing the same thing over and over again, each and every day, and trying to get just a little bit better than the day before.

There’s very little a person cannot achieve if they Take Action, Consistently. Taking Action is a decision. Being consistent is a culture, honed by repetition.

Consistency transforms average into exceptional, and the best part is that it is something that we can all develop.

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