Iterations

Doing a thing 5,000 times, you'll be rewarded with one of two possible magic tricks:

1. If you try to do slightly better each time, your output will come to seem like more than the sum of its parts. At first, only subliminally. Your cookies "grow on" people, or your prose is "hard to put down". Over time, greatness arises.

2. If, instead, you focus on maintaining quality, you'll nail it even on bad days and under poor conditions. Your magic trick is consistency. A sort of heroism.

But if you don't set a standard to maintain or to push, results will be scattershot, and you'll often find yourself impatiently awaiting inspiration. Magic appears to arrive, erratically, "from above".

This applies to all action, not just one's center stage activity.