Average Joe.

Maybe you remember two weeks ago when I wrote about showing up to get stuff done. And in this case, it worked. I showed up and managed to write a blog post in time. Yay me.

Since then I was thinking more about how we get things done.

When you think about the people you admire for what they have accomplished or are still accomplishing, how did they get there? How are they managing to accomplish so much more than most other people?

Let’s start at the beginning. Everyone has the same 24 hours (that’s what a lot of people told you before). But when you start looking at what an average person does in this 24 hours and what these great, admirable people do, the difference becomes apparent very quickly: they show up.

Instead of sleeping long and pressing the snooze button several times, they stand up before dawn and start a productive day.

Instead of checking emails, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all the other social media platforms consistently, they have their phone in airplane mode and decide to look at all that stuff deliberately at a pre-planned time later in the day.

Instead of complaining that they have to work 9-5 they use the time from 5-9 for other, so-called side hustles.

Instead of talking about ideas for months after months they start working on bringing the ideas to life.

And so on. There are a lot of things these people do that separates them from “normal” people. And if we are honest, there are also these people who annoy us with their constant reminder how great they are and how fantastic their day is planned and how little sleep they need. And let me clarify, I’m not talking about these people.

I am referring to the real great people that share what they do because they want to help others, they want to enable others to become great, too. To strive for a better you is important and essential. And if you find ways that work for you, then please share them. But stop bragging about how great you are. That’s not helping anyone.

So, where was I? Right. The difference between the people that seem to have their life under control and accomplish a lot more than the average Joe (sorry Joe).

To summon this up. When you look at the things these people do, you can break it down to one simple thing: they show up. Every hour. Every day. Every week. Every month. They show up to become the best version of themselves. To create something worth creating. To make the world a little better. One step at a time.

So that sounds rather easy. All you have to do is show up. Doesn’t sound that complicated, does it? But it is. That’s why not a lot of us do it. Because showing up also means forcing yourself to show up. Standing up in the middle of the night to get some work done before your children wake up or working on your side hustle till midnight isn’t fun. The only reason you do it is because you are certain that this is the right thing to do. That you’re working on something great, something meaningful, something worth forcing yourself to show up.

So in the end, being an awesome person is about showing up. And being able to force yourself to show up constantly. Because you know it’s worth it.