The ordinary path to extraordinary excellence

Greatness isn’t born—it’s built.

In The Mundanity of Excellence, sociologist Daniel Chambliss debunks the myth of innate talent and extraordinary effort. He shows mastery emerges from ordinary, deliberate actions repeated consistently over time.

What seems magical or unreachable is often the result of mundane habits executed with focus and intention. Success isn’t about dramatic breakthroughs but steady progress and a commitment to the fundamentals.

Chambliss’s insights remind us that excellence is accessible to anyone willing to embrace deliberate effort, incremental improvements, and a purposeful mindset.

Here’s how.

1 / The quality of your practice matters more than how much you practice

Greatness isn’t about grinding out endless hours or chasing the famous 10,000-hour rule.

It’s about how you practice. What matters isn’t the time you spend but how you spend it. Top performers are distinguished by focused, intentional effort; every opportunity is designed to improve specific skills.

Deliberate practice vs. mindless repetition

Sociologist Daniel Chambliss highlights the critical difference between deliberate practice and mindless repetition. Elite swimmers don’t just swim lap after lap; they zero in on targeted improvements, such as refining their breathing rhythm to optimize oxygen flow or adjusting body alignment to reduce drag. These small, intentional adjustments compound over time, creating a foundation for long-term success. In contrast, swimmers who repeat poor form, like holding their heads too high, reinforce bad habits, ultimately limiting their progress.

Deliberate focus on quality

This principle extends beyond swimming. Basketball legend Stephen Curry doesn’t simply spend hours shooting free throws—he meticulously analyzes every detail, from his stance to the angle of his release, making subtle refinements that lead to consistent excellence. His extraordinary performance stems not from endless repetition but from focusing on the details and high-quality practice.

The secret to elite performance

Elite performance isn’t about working harder—it’s about working smarter. Top performers prioritize quality over quantity, breaking their craft into components and improving each with precision. This deliberate, thoughtful approach transforms small, intentional efforts into the mastery that sets them apart.

Using the quality of practice method

Choose a specific area to focus on and deliberately improve it during your next project. You can refine your craft with intention and precision by targeting one skill at a time.

Here are some examples:

Refine interaction design.

• Perfect micro-interactions or transitions to elevate the quality of your designs and prototypes. Pay attention to timing, feedback, and seamless movement between states.

Focus on journey mapping.

• Use journey maps as a communication tool to simplify and clarify complex processes. Break down each step to ensure your team fully understands the flow and can collaborate effectively.

Improve communication and collaboration.

• Present your design decisions to build trust with teammates or stakeholders. Use storytelling, visuals, or analogies to align everyone around the same vision.

Whatever you choose, make your focus intentional. Give yourself the time and space to hone that skill, and track your progress to ensure consistent improvement.

2 / Technical proficiency multiplies effort

Small, precise adjustments can make all the difference.

Refining the details

Daniel Chambliss explains that technical proficiency—not sheer effort—defines excellence. It’s not about working harder; it’s about refining the component parts that contribute to performance.

Consider the entry angle of a dive. Elite swimmers adjust their technique to minimize splash and resistance, creating a smoother transition into the water. These small adjustments can shave fractions of a second off their time—fractions that add up and win races. Compare that to swimmers who sprint through laps without refining their technique. They exhaust themselves, fighting the water instead of working with it. By honing their skills, elite swimmers achieve effortless speed, while others struggle despite equal or greater effort.

Using the technical proficiency method

Mastery comes from refining your skills with focus and intention. Choose a technical skill to improve and prioritize it in your daily work.

Here are some examples:

Master Figma’s auto-layout.

• Create designs that are consistent, scalable, and quick to iterate, reducing manual adjustments and errors.

Perfect reusable components.

• Streamline your design process and ensure pixel-perfect consistency by building and refining component libraries.

Sharpen problem-solving skills.

• Break down complex challenges into smaller parts, explore possible solutions, and pinpoint the most effective one to execute.

Whatever skill you choose, be intentional. Technical precision isn’t about working longer—it’s about working smarter. The small, focused improvements you make today will multiply your impact tomorrow.

3 / Daily habits and rituals

Excellence isn’t built on grand, sporadic efforts. It’s built on habits.

Consistency drives improvement

Daniel Chambliss highlights that consistent routines are the foundation of high performance. Elite athletes repeat small, purposeful actions until effective techniques become automatic, enabling them to perform reliably under pressure.

For example, elite swimmers follow structured training schedules, refining strokes in the morning, building strength midday, and swimming in the afternoon to enhance speed and endurance. This seemingly mundane repetition drives continuous improvement.

Habits under pressure

Habits shine brightest in high-stakes moments. When nerves and pressure threaten focus, ingrained routines remain steady. A swimmer who practices their butterfly stroke daily will execute it flawlessly in a race—even if anxiety clouds their thoughts. Their body knows what to do.

Why consistency matters

Small, repetitive actions build lasting improvement. They instill discipline and confidence, ensuring athletes perform at their best, even in challenging situations.

Using the daily habits and rituals method

Excellence is built on consistent, purposeful actions. Choose a daily habit that helps you grow as a designer and commit to it.

Here are some examples:

Sharpen your skills with daily practice.

• Spend 30–60 minutes each morning designing, prototyping, or experimenting with typography to refine your craft over time.

Seek best-in-class inspiration.

• Before starting a project, look for designs that set a high bar and use them to guide your goals.

Expand your knowledge.

• Dedicate time to reading books or articles that deepen your understanding of design strategy, storytelling, or visual hierarchy.

Consistency is the foundation of excellence. Committing to small, purposeful habits creates a reliable path to improvement and mastery.

4 / The power of your environment

Excellence doesn’t happen in isolation.

Daniel Chambliss emphasizes that the social environment—including coaches, teammates, and culture—plays a critical role in achieving greatness. When surrounded by people who set high standards, hold you accountable, and normalize hard work, you naturally adopt the habits and mindset that drive success.

How high-performance environments shape growth

Chambliss observed that success is often normalized within the right environment. In elite swimming teams, habits like twice-daily training, flawless technique, and constant feedback are not exceptions but the standard. Similarly, designers thrive in growth-oriented environments emphasizing high standards, constructive feedback, and learning opportunities. Teams that prioritize quality inspire everyone to elevate their work, while regular critiques from peers and mentors foster iteration and improvement. A culture of experimentation and collaboration ensures constant skill-building. Improvement becomes a natural and continuous process when excellence is woven into the environment.

Using the power of your environment method

Excellence thrives in the right environment. Here’s how to cultivate spaces that inspire and challenge you:

Prioritize mentorship.

• Focus on joining a team or learning from someone whose work you admire. The right mentor can guide you toward higher standards.

Surround yourself with inspiring designers.

• Observe their processes, attention to detail, and problem-solving approaches to elevate your own work.

Seek constructive feedback.

• Work with peers or mentors who push you to improve and hold you accountable.

Engage with growth-oriented communities.

• Join critique groups, professional networks, or online forums celebrating excellence and fostering collaboration.

Immersing yourself in high-performance environments will help you naturally adopt the habits, mindset, and standards that lead to success.

5 / Excellence is built step by step

Greatness doesn’t come from dramatic breakthroughs.

Improving step by step

In The Mundanity of Excellence, sociologist Daniel Chambliss explains that mastery is achieved through incremental progress. Elite swimmers don’t become champions overnight—their success comes from gradual, manageable improvements. Beginners focus on basics like floating, kicking, and rudimentary strokes. Intermediate swimmers refine these fundamentals, improving breathing rhythm, arm position, and body alignment. Advanced swimmers hone the smallest details, such as perfecting hand entry angles or tweaking stroke counts to conserve energy.

The power of marginal gains

Chambliss highlights the compounding effect of small improvements, often called marginal gains. For swimmers, shaving 0.1 seconds off a push-off or perfecting a dive’s entry angle may seem insignificant, but combined, these refinements lead to meaningful performance boosts. Each improvement builds on the last, creating a ripple effect that transforms overall ability.

Small wins build confidence

Focusing on small, achievable goals builds confidence and momentum. For swimmers, improving reaction time at starts or perfecting turns creates a sense of progress that fuels further motivation. These incremental successes reinforce the belief that improvement is always possible, fostering resilience and a growth mindset.

Using the incremental progress method

Mastery is built through small, deliberate improvements over time. Here’s how designers can apply this method:

Break down your craft into components.

• Focus on specific areas like typography, interaction design, or accessibility. Refine each piece to strengthen the overall foundation.

Celebrate small wins.

• Acknowledge progress, like creating a polished design component or simplifying a complex workflow. These moments boost confidence and keep you motivated.

Stay consistent.

• Commit to regular, focused improvements. Over time, these small adjustments will add up, transforming your work and elevating your skillset.

Excellence doesn’t come from sudden leaps. The deliberate pursuit of incremental improvements, step by step, leads to greatness.

6 / Specialization and focus

Excellence isn’t about doing everything—it’s about doing the right things exceptionally well.

Targeting key skills for improvement

In The Mundanity of Excellence, sociologist Daniel Chambliss explains that mastery comes from focusing on the most important skills and techniques. Elite swimmers prioritize elements that have the greatest impact on their performance:

• Sprinters hone explosive starts, powerful strokes, and anaerobic endurance.
• Distance swimmers concentrate on pacing, aerobic capacity, and energy conservation.

Attempting to train for both sprints and long-distance races often leads to mediocrity. Specialization enables athletes to refine unique skills and strategies for success in their chosen discipline.

Mastering the details that matter most

Chambliss observed that elite swimmers dedicate themselves to areas with maximum impact:

• Freestyle: Streamlining body position and arm recovery to reduce drag.
• Butterfly: Timing kicks, and arm pulls for optimal propulsion.
• Breaststroke: Achieving seamless transitions to maintain speed.

Rather than spreading energy across unrelated goals, swimmers focus on fundamentals like core strength and perfecting starts and turns—small but decisive details that can determine the outcome of a race.

Sharpening the blade

Specialization is like sharpening a blade. Effectiveness comes from repeatedly honing critical techniques until they are razor-sharp, ensuring every effort is focused where it matters most.

Avoiding distractions

Specialization requires saying no to pursuits that don’t align with your goals. Swimmers forgo unrelated sports or routines that risk fatigue or injury and prioritize technical improvements over general activities. This clarity of purpose isn’t about doing more—it’s about focusing on what drives success.

Using the specialization and focus method

Consider what skills will have the greatest impact and focus on refining them:

Craft compelling presentations and narratives.

• Simplify complex ideas into clear, visual stories that resonate with stakeholders, building confidence in presenting and explaining decisions.

Refine visual design and prototyping skills.

• Create stunning, usable designs and bring ideas to life with intentional, interactive prototypes.

Strengthen teamwork and collaboration.

• Lead productive critiques, facilitate workshops, and design workflows that empower your team while ensuring seamless handoffs.

Specialization sharpens your craft. Focusing on the most important skills can amplify your impact and create outstanding work.

7 / The mindset of excellence

Excellence isn’t just about skill or effort—it’s about how you see the work.

Turning challenges into growth opportunities

In The Mundanity of Excellence, sociologist Daniel Chambliss emphasizes how mindset shapes mastery. Elite performers don’t simply work harder; they think differently. For swimmers, this means reframing challenges as opportunities:

• Seeing tough sets as opportunities: A challenging workout—like 10x100 meters on a tight interval—isn’t a burden but a chance to build stamina and mental toughness, making future races feel easier.
• Welcoming competition: Faster swimmers are seen as benchmarks, not threats. Racing someone better becomes an opportunity to improve, not a source of stress.

This mindset allows them to thrive where others might stagnate.

Finding joy in the work

Elite performers find joy in the process, not just the results. For swimmers, it’s the satisfaction of executing a precise stroke or completing a tough set. For designers, it might be crafting an elegant solution, discovering new insights through testing, or collaborating effectively with a team. Shifting your mindset turns challenges into opportunities, setbacks into lessons, and hard work into something meaningful and rewarding.

Using the mindset of excellence method

Adopting a growth-oriented mindset can fuel your development as a designer:

Reframe tough projects as opportunities.

• See complex user flows or tight deadlines as chances to sharpen your skills. Focus on what you’ll learn, not just the effort involved.

Celebrate small wins.

• Acknowledge progress, whether refining a tricky interaction, improving a design’s clarity, or mastering a new tool. Use these successes to stay motivated.

View setbacks as data.

• Analyze failures: What could you do differently? Treat mistakes as stepping stones for future improvement.

Adopting a growth-oriented mindset makes the journey to excellence more meaningful and rewarding.

8 / The redefinition of “ordinary”

Excellence often seems magical from the outside. But for elite performers, what looks extraordinary is simply routine.

Turning the extraordinary into routine

For elite swimmers, maintaining a streamlined body position during every push-off is second nature—a movement practiced so often that it becomes automatic. While this might feel awkward and require constant effort for beginners, elite swimmers glide effortlessly across the pool, resulting from thousands of small, deliberate adjustments. What seems extraordinary to an outsider is simply the product of consistent, well-practiced habits. It’s not magic—it’s just what they do every day.

Using the redefinition of “ordinary” method

As a UX designer, you can apply the same principle to your craft. Mastery comes from turning foundational skills into second nature and continuously raising your standards.

Focus on refining the basics.

• Hone foundational skills like alignment, spacing, and color balance until they’re intuitive. Pay attention to details such as micro-interactions, button states, and animations. Master the art of creating clear, user-friendly workflows. These seemingly “ordinary” elements combine to create extraordinary designs.

Normalize growth through consistent challenges.

• What feels difficult now can become routine with repetition. Start small by tackling increasingly complex UX flows or prototyping techniques. Regularly step out of your comfort zone by exploring new design systems or testing bold ideas. Aim to elevate your work with every project, turning yesterday’s challenges into today’s norms.

Build routines that make excellence automatic.

• Begin every project with thorough user research to ground your designs in real-world insights. Establish workflows that prioritize iteration and feedback to refine your ideas. Develop a habit of usability testing to ensure your designs meet user needs and expectations.

Mastery isn’t about dramatic breakthroughs—it’s about making excellence feel ordinary.

9 / Excellence is not magic

Greatness isn’t some unexplainable gift.

Perfecting the dolphin kick

In The Mundanity of Excellence, sociologist Daniel Chambliss explains that mastery isn’t about innate talent or natural ability—it’s about consistent, deliberate effort over time. This perspective shifts success from unattainable to within reach for anyone willing to do the work.

Take the dolphin kick, for example. An elite swimmer’s smooth, powerful kick might seem effortless to an outsider—like they were born with it. But for the swimmer, that fluidity results from hours of practice and countless small adjustments. They experiment with timing and rhythm, refine their body alignment to reduce drag and learn how to generate power from their core.

The result is impressive, but it’s not magic. It’s the product of methodical, focused practice. Through this deliberate process, even swimmers who initially struggle can achieve exceptional results.

Using the excellence is not magic method

As a UX designer, you can apply this principle to your craft. Great design isn’t the result of sudden inspiration or innate talent—it’s built through intentional practice and attention to detail.

Break challenges into smaller pieces.

• Isolate and refine specific aspects of your work, like swimmers who focus on individual performance components. Analyze user flows step by step to identify friction points. Experiment with micro-interactions to create smoother transitions. Iterate on one design element, like typography, until it feels just right.

Build habits that drive growth.

• Seek regular feedback to uncover blind spots and refine your ideas. Dedicate time to learning new tools or experimenting with new techniques. Revisit past work to identify patterns and areas for improvement.

Embrace the power of repetition.

• Test and retest your designs with real users to see what works. Refine your design systems to ensure they are cohesive and scalable. Explore multiple variations of a single idea to expand your creativity.

By focusing on deliberate, incremental improvements, you’ll build a strong foundation for success—step by step.

10 / Climbing the ladder to excellence

Greatness isn’t achieved in isolation—it’s shaped by our environment.

Why growth environments matter

In The Mundanity of Excellence, sociologist Daniel Chambliss emphasizes that success is often normalized within the right environment. In elite swimming teams, habits like twice-daily training, flawless technique, and constant feedback are not exceptions but the standard. Similarly, designers thrive in growth-oriented environments emphasizing high standards, constructive feedback, and learning opportunities.

Teams that prioritize quality inspire everyone to elevate their work. Regular critiques from peers and mentors foster iteration and improvement. A culture of experimentation and collaboration ensures constant skill-building. Improvement becomes a natural and continuous process when excellence is woven into the environment.

How environments drive growth

Chambliss observed that each level of swimming creates conditions that demand growth:

• At the club level, swimmers focus on basics like stroke technique, endurance, and participation.
• At the regional level, they refine technical skills and adopt consistent training habits.
• At the national level, they master advanced techniques such as pacing and precision, often training multiple times daily.

Designers face a similar progression in their careers:

• Early in your career, you focus on foundational skills, such as mastering design tools, conducting research, and collaborating effectively.
• As you advance, you refine technical and soft skills, like articulating design decisions, leading workshops, and fostering teamwork.
• At senior levels, you’re expected to drive strategy, mentor others, and deliver consistently exceptional work.

Each stage builds on the last, and the quality of your environment—peers, mentors, and team culture—shapes your ability to rise to new challenges.

Using the ladder principle

As UX designers, we can use the ladder principle to guide our growth. Here’s how:

Surround yourself with excellence.

• Seek out teams or mentors who challenge and inspire you. Join environments that emphasize collaboration and high-quality work.

Embrace higher expectations.

• Focus on mastering the skills most valuable to your current role. Adapt to increasing demands in technical execution, strategic thinking, or leadership.

Treat challenges as preparation.

• See obstacles as opportunities to build your skills for future success. Let today’s hurdles prepare you for tomorrow’s possibilities.

By embracing this progression, you can create a career defined by growth and mastery.

Excellence is within reach

The journey to mastery doesn’t demand magic or innate talent—it requires focus, discipline, and persistence. Chambliss’s research underscores that greatness comes from doing ordinary things exceptionally well, day after day.

Whether perfecting your craft, embracing challenges, or surrounding yourself with high-performing peers, the path to success is accessible to anyone committed to the process.

Excellence isn’t flashy—it’s built on consistency. And it’s achieved one deliberate action at a time.