There’s nothing wrong with striving to attain greatness, working towards some worthwhile career goal, or deeply engaging yourself in the process of trying to be a champion. However, it might best be understood to be an injustice to your highest self to remain unenlightened to the ratio of your life that these moments actually make up.

You must know and understand this ratio as you move forward in your life so that you can set reasonable targets for what you truly wish to achieve and the weight of its importance among its ratio of your existence.

The percentage of your life that’s made up of ordinary, standard, and regular days far outweighs the percentage of your life that’s made up of moments of sublime victory. The moments when you reach the top of a mountain you’ve been climbing, the feelings that accompany lifting the trophy you worked so hard for all season long, or when you obtained the promotion you sought after for years. These moments have no bearing against the amount of time you spend experiencing the normal days invested into the process of getting to where you wanted to go. And although striving for the accomplishment of wonderful things isn’t inherently bad, it might be more advantageous to the optimization of your life’s experience to realize this ratio and attempt to instead, ensure you at least win over the moments you often categorize as mundane, normal, or average.

Futhermore, then, perhaps you should consider the questions: What does my average day look like? What kind of people do I have to consistently engage with and what kind of work do I have to do? How does my significant other greet me in the morning when we wake up together, or when I get home from work after a long day. Am I rightfully investing in a loving, healthy relationship or am I letting the little things that matter to me slip away from my attention? Am I already seeing red flags?

How much do I enjoy the work I partake in on a day-to-day basis rather than measuring the monetary income I receive? How does my boss engage with me, how do they treat me, and am I allowed and encouraged to be in my daily meetings/interactions with them? Is the energy in my workplace good, positive and encouraging? Or not so much? How’s the quality of conversations I’m having with my friends at lunch, over coffee, or with my brothers/sisters/children at the dinner table? Are my interactions with them loving, compassionate, and understanding of one another? Or are they consistently based on frustration, annoyance, or irritation?

Walking in the door after a long day of work to a miserable at-home situation is sure to act as a major inhibition to your daily happiness. And that’s something you’re going to face every single day. So, to do the work that’ll ensure you’re dating, growing with (with the ambition to hopefully marry that person) is something that could be seen as mundane, although it really is the furthest thing from that.

As it’s an everyday interaction, that when compounded over time, will make up a large percentage of your life. If you were to break down your days with this filter on and begin seeing these minor (or major?) interactions stacking up, it may be a productive shift to altering your paradigm. Because there are an infinite number of “mini” moments that collaborate to make up most of our days and further yet, most of our lives.

Clinical psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson talks about this concept strongly in his book Beyond Order. He reveals a specific story of his father-in-law and wanting the lunch he was served every day from his wife to be on a different sized plate. Let this story simply portray the idea of this concept more thoroughly. He mentions how he despised how small the plate was, yet never bothered to mention it to his wife. Not for years at least. Dr. Peterson comes to the conclusion, later, that although this seems trivial, if it’s something that’s done every single day, it most certainly is not. It’s actually quite significant. If it was something that bothered you every single day, it would be worth noting and ultimately calling out and attempting to fix it so that you don’t encounter that same annoyance every single time you sit down for your midday meal.

What might that look like for you? What daily engagements are you partaking in that could be optimized to better suit your experience?

Let me make this clear, the feelings you desire as a byproduct from accomplishing some worthwhile goal are not bad things. Having aim (aiming towards something you desire) is necessary in life to conduct your actions forward. It’s impossible not to.

You can not act, behave, and/or attribute meaning to anything without aim. However, it’s crucial to understand that the attainment of something lofty and grand in your eyes may turn out to mean relatively nothing in comparison to the ratio of your life that is spent engaging in the all-too-normal tasks that compile your daily routines. Your daily interactions. Your daily actions. Your daily engagements. If you’re satisfied with the little things (those things you do and interact with on a daily basis) the vast majority of your life will be spent optimally, proudly, and joyfully.

Now, a word of caution:

This isn’t meant to be concluded that you should then, aim towards the attainment of the most potentially pleasurable experiences on a daily, moment by moment basis. Living your life under this assumption; that aiming towards immediate gratification and satisfying pleasurable experiences is how to live optimally, is dreadfully wrong and misconstrued. The pursuit of what’s pleasurable often overrides and mitigates that which is challenging, but meaningful.

More often than not, winning those mundane moments requires you do what’s most difficult to do in the moment, as opposed to that which obtains the least friction. Having a difficult conversation, for example, would be very easy to avoid (as did Jordan Peterson’s client in relation to the size of his plate). Thus, you mustn’t simply seek what’s most fun, pleasurable, or satisfying to you now. However, this is meant to direct you towards realizing the significance of this ratio and seek to follow a path that fulfills the satisfied quota of your micro daily involvements. Aiming towards winning the engagements you have every single day, and making sure you get those right.

This should be of pinnacle importance to you. Because you’ll spend 99% of your life engaging with these components of your daily process and less than 1% experiencing the feeling you desire upon the achievement of some lofty goal.

Can you do both? Yes, of course you can. But if you were to choose one, which would that be?

What becomes unparalleled (in relation to its impact on your life ) is the realization of the impact that this ratio has on the quality of your life and optimization of your experience. Therefore, don’t allow everyday matters and attempting to “get those right,” by your own definition, slip under the rug of your awareness and go by unnoticed. Analyze the things you do every single day and seek to optimize those activities, cautiously but intentionally. Because getting those things in congruent alignment with your values and passions will have the most tremendous impact on your life. Arguably, and potentially, more than anything else.

Realize the ratio and seek to win the mundane.