How Dumb People Can Beat Smart People
If you’ve entered the new year with goals, resolutions, or big ideas for what you want to change — good.
Reflection matters.
Do this if you haven’t.
I’ve written plenty about how to set goals, how to reflect on the past year, and how to plan ahead.
But if I’m being honest, the thing I’ve failed to emphasize enough — both in writing and in my own life — is this:
The real goal isn’t what you do. It’s how consistently you do it.
You usually know what you need to do more of.
You usually know what you need to do less of.
The hard part isn’t clarity.
The hard part is consistency.
We love to attribute winning to talent, intelligence, motivation, or luck.
But when I look at anything I’ve actually improved at — jiu jitsu, fitness, writing, business, bowhunting — it’s never been because I was the most gifted person in the room.
I wasn’t the smartest. I wasn’t the tallest. I wasn’t the most athletic, the most talented, or even the most qualified.
It’s because I did the thing more. And I did it longer.
And usually because I was simply the most stoked about it.
That’s it.
Which is why I think most New Year’s resolutions are stupid.
They’re often built around a single outcome:
Win the competition
Lose the weight
Hit the revenue number
Finish the project
Mastery doesn’t come from singular events.
It comes from repeated behavior with great enthusiasm around the mundane. The boring. The research. The notes. The time you aren’t actually doing the thing. When nobody is applauding or caring.
This year, instead of chasing a specific outcome, I bought some colorful stickers and a wall-size calendar that shows every single day of the year draped across my office wall.
And for a handful of things that matter to me (that I want to invest in) — training, movement, reading, learning — I place a small sticker whenever I show up.
It’s hanging in the middle of of my office right now, staring back at me as I write this. Not the ideal aesthetic that my interior design-obsessed significant other generally approves of.
But hey, it’s my daily viewing.
I’m not going to be perfect.
I’m not even going to be able to do it every day.
But consistency doesn’t mean daily.
Consistency might be:
2–3 times per week
Once a month
A non-negotiable rhythm you actually keep
The point isn’t intensity.
The point is stay in the game.
If you want to get better at jiu jitsu, the goal shouldn’t be the competition medal.
It should be training a certain number of times per week every week.
We like to believe the smartest, strongest, or most talented people win.
In reality, the people who win are usually just the ones who show up longer than everyone else.
This is how dumb people can beat the smart people.
Myself included.
Make this the year where consistency is the goal.
Not perfection.
Not some singular outcome.
Just stay on the path long enough for it to compound.
— Tim
P.S.
There is a cliché in the investing world (that the greatest financial investors in history have used as their guiding principle) that applies perfectly to life:
Time in the market beats timing the market.
It doesn’t matter where you start or when you start, the greatest returns will come from being in it the longest.
You could be at zero today, just start doing it, and do it consistently.
Time in, beats timing.
——
If consistency is the goal, you need a way to see it.
One of the simplest tools I’ve used is writing things down — not to be perfect, but to be honest. A journal doesn’t create discipline. It creates awareness. And awareness is what makes consistency possible.
That’s exactly why I built The Practitioner’s Journal — a simple, intentional space to track training, habits, and effort over time.
Not to impress anyone.
Just to stay on the path.
👉 If consistency matters to you this year, The Practitioner’s Journal is there to support the work.
