Excellence is a form of deviance.
If you perform beyond the norms, you will disrupt all the existing systems. Those systems will then alter and begin to work to routinize your efforts. That is, the systems will adjust and try to make you normal.
The way to achieve and maintain excellence is to deviate from the norms.
You become excellent because you are doing things normal people do not want to do. You become excellent by choosing a path that is risky and painful, a path that is not appealing to others.
Source: Robert Quinn’s “Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within “