At some point I became obsessed with the normal distribution: it's so beautiful - comprised of many data points but forms a certain shape (kinda like a moving flock of birds). It also follows logic - both across the big number of people and within one person's life.
Which is excellent: logic is a sure guarantee things work and what's a more practical application than one's life.
So. What are the useful corollaries from the known properties of the normal distribution?
One of the most important ones - to me - is: shift your median instead of your max value.
What does it mean and what's the difference?
Often but especially when you're young, it's tempting to do things out of band - run marathon tomorrow, jump on a plane to a different country, do something unexpected and even slightly crazy. That's moving your max (and potentially introducing outliers) - that doesn't change the shape of your distribution meaningfully.
Shifting your median consists of adding many new data points each of which is not significantly “wowzie” but consistently slightly better than half of your existing data points. Running few times a week, practicing new language consistently, etc. It's not super flashy or breath taking but it surely shifts your whole distribution - potentially pushing out max, too. Suddenly, after a year of sustained running, you can run marathon. Or maintain a conversation in that language. Etc.
An additional angle here is: a) power of everyday things; b) there's no thing as “no choice” - everything - everything - you do fills up some bucket. It might not feel like much or important but every minute spent doing X (sometimes a stupid X: scrolling Twitter or losing yourself in a brainless TV show) is a minute counting towards the ten thousand hours of creating that skill/habit/neural pattern.
This is valuable info. I do that, run one marathon a year with minimal training, but now gradually shifting to the latter.