Add only a little extra to your ordinary!

Sometimes we try to add a spade of effort when all we really need is just a teaspoon of consistent addition.

After two decades of dedicated study, Albert E. N. Gray, author of the classic The Common Denominator of Success, arrived at a deceptively simple conclusion: the common denominator of success, shared by all who have achieved it, lies in forming the habit of doing the very things others dislike doing.

These are not habits that successful people necessarily enjoy; rather, they have developed the habit of doing them anyway. This principle is as straightforward as it sounds and as enduring as it appears. It can be tested, scrutinized, and debated, yet it remains unchanged: success depends on forming the small habits that most people avoid.

Add only a little extra

In life, it is often the little extra, the things we easily overlook, that transform what we do from ordinary into extraordinary. In biblical language, ‘it is the little leaven that leaveneth the whole lump.’ Put differently, adding the little word “extra” turns “ordinary” into “extraordinary.” And that extra doesn’t have to be dramatic. Sometimes it simply means reading a little longer than you normally would.

It might be praying a little more than your usual routine. It could be choosing just a little more patience than you would have shown before. For instance, Mary Magdalene stayed just a little longer at the empty tomb, and because of that small “extra” wait, she became the first to see the risen Jesus. Others had gone home, but she chose to wait just a little more than she normally might have.

Not a spade, only a teaspoon addition

Ask yourself: What are the things I’ve been doing only ordinarily, and deep down, I know that if I put in just a very tiny addition, a little extra effort beyond my previous effort, my life could become far more beautiful than it is now? Sometimes we try to add a spade of effort when all we really need is just a teaspoon of consistent addition. So, focus on small, consistent steps.

Tiny changes, repeated over time, lead to extraordinary results. Next, ask yourself: What simple plan, so easy that I don’t have to worry too much about getting it done, can I practically put in place to stay consistent? Because consistency matters. Giving the extra effort today and abandoning it tomorrow doesn’t bring much change; it only means you are breaking the rhythm of the habits that lead to success.

But if you sustain that extra, even something as small as a teaspoon of leaven (yeast), small enough to keep you adding just a bit more than the person you were yesterday, over time it accumulates into a mighty leaven, what James Clear calls an Atomic Habit. And that accumulation is what ultimately becomes extraordinary.