Be the best you can be today. Be one step better today than yesterday. Put others above self. Measure personal excellence by your standards and no one else. Do something hard that you would rather not do. Fix something (a relationship?) that you broke or is damaged. Give up procrastination for today.
When your day runs out before you come to the end of your list, make a new list for tomorrow and offer thanks for today. Be grateful for all you did accomplish. If it was less than you wanted or less than you could have done, resolve to do better. Write that on your list as your personal reminder.
Allow for missteps. Excellence does not require perfection. It does require persistence, progression and a burning desire to be and do better.
The best you can do today qualifies as excellence, for today. Recognize and accept it. Tomorrow is a new day and while we don't start over, we do work to achieve excellence each day. Excellence is an hourly, daily achievement, not an end point.
Build, grow and improve tomorrow over today. At tomorrow's end, having risen above today and made your best effort, you will again have achieved excellence.
Set goals for your life. Major goals that take years to accomplish and short term goals that take a day or a week or a month to complete. Write them on paper, give each a priority and a date. Part of being excellent today is having goals for tomorrow. If you write them down you will increase your level of accomplishment by a factor of ten (10x).
Perfection is your end game. It is not today's goal. Remove it from your measure of excellence.
Excellence is an hourly, daily, weekly achievement. It is the path we follow in pursuit of perfection. It allows for failure. In fact excellence requires that we walk through failure, not around it. Mistakes are part of the learning process. Acknowledge them. Repair their damage, eliminate the behavior that accounted for failure, move on.
Perfection will measure the aggregate of your life at its conclusion. Until then excellence is your measurement of today. Was today an improvement over yesterday, last week, last month? Did you get up and move on after your latest mistake? Is the path still going uphill? If yes, then you are still on the path of excellence.
Attitude drives excellence while accomplishments are its measure. Getting up after a failure is an accomplishment. Counting that as an accomplishment is attitude. Of the two, attitude is of the greatest import. It is a better measure of the person.
Excellence demands some level of happiness. Excellence and happiness increase in concert. Attitude is the determinant key in happiness. It is the catalyst in the excellence-happiness concert.
We tend to judge our level of excellence mostly on our accomplishments, and they certainly are a key measure. However,
1. improvement over yesterday,
2. rising above a failure,
3. and happiness,
...are individually and collectively the truest measure of excellence.
Excellence is not illusive nor relegated to the rich and powerful. Quite the contrary on both points.
Give yourself this simple test. Regardless of where you are today you can achieve a higher level of excellence tomorrow.
Self test:
1. Did you accomplish something meaningful today?
Yes=3; maybe=1; no=0
2. What are you thankful for today?
A lot=3; A little=1; Nothing=0
3. Did you do something today better than you did it yesterday?
Yes=3; maybe=1; no=0
4. Do you have any written goals?
Yes=3; I can't find them=1; no=0
5. Are you happy?
Yes=3; maybe=1; no=0
6. What is your attitude toward life?
Positive=3; Not totally negative=1; Negative=0
If your score is:
0-5 You probably were not fair to yourself. Retake the test.
6-9 Your flame of excellence is burning low. Give it some fuel.
10-18 Excellence is alive and well. Carry on, share with others, write new goals.
The test is simple but sufficient for our instruction. Retake it often or make up your own and take that one often. Set goals, do what you can to accomplish them, accept your successes, write them down, repeat the process. It has often been said that performance measured and reported produces the best results. This is especially true when managing oneself.
Excellence is your personal force for good. It embodies the good in you. It encourages growth, demands a positive attitude and requires gratitude. It is not perfection nor does it require perfect behavior.
Excellence is the measure of the common man. We are all better at it than we think.
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