Success tip: make excellence your lifestyle
To remain excellent, you must take yesterday’s excellence as today’s mediocre. It’s no use enjoying how “great” it used to be. It is very tempting to feel a sense of “arrival” too soon and truncate or freeze your POTENTIAL. Excellence is not an easy job. Once you get it, you have a greater responsibility to maintain it. Excellence then becomes your way of life, second nature. I do not doubt the fact that we are not born excellent. It comes to those who have a search for it. Those who make it a value to live by. Great organizations are led by great leaders. Excellence cannot be expected from careless, disorganized and confused leadership. Excellence deals with the seemingly small things that have the potential to mess up the big picture. Look for the original intent and the original desired result, not half-baked solutions or proxies. Organizations that live by this value document their systems and processes so that they can replicate their stores or operations anywhere in the world. The systems are so simple that even the dumbest of all can go on and produce the excellent product or service that the organization provides. Excellence doesn’t just happen by accident. it’s intentional
Goodbye to MEDIOCRITY, hello to EXCELLENCE: excellence is the cornerstone and main pillar of SUCCESS. It is an attitude that says “I leave nothing to chance, let me do my best”. Mediocrity focuses on sitting on the fence. One is content as long as one gets enough to feed the children, one is content with any kind of production as long as at least something has been done. Poor thinking says that it’s okay to be 10 minutes late, as long as you make it to the meeting. It’s the kind of thinking that always says “At least I…” At least there was breakfast (regardless of the quality and nutritional benefit of this meal).
Success, on the other hand, befriends those who are willing to part ways with being happy with half the accomplishments. When applied to your work, it will produce unique EXCELLENT results EVERY TIME. If you want to remain excellent at everything you do, always seek to improve on how you did last time. Your motto and thought pattern should read “My excellent work yesterday is what I consider mediocre today.” As long as we bask in our past glory and past achievements, we will never AIM to aim higher than we did. We tend to set our own BOUNDARIES and BOUNDARIES that way. I am not suggesting that you keep quiet about what you did in the past, it is important to have a track record of EXCELLENCE that you can use as a reference point and source of HOPE to say “If I managed to do such feats under such conditions, what more today with more experience?” , more resources, more relationships…” Your resume boosts your confidence to dive into new territory; builds your faith to challenge LIMITED lines of thought. Your resume heralds and chronicles key milestones in your life. I urge you today to take stock of their accomplishments and summarize in bullet point form some of the great things they’ve done in the past in date order. That alone is a story the world is waiting to hear. It may seem small in your own eyes, but it will turn the crowds on its head. that they will hear about you. My point is that this becomes your SPRINGBOARD to new levels, not necessarily making it your resting place.
EXCELLENCE will knock on the doors of those who invest in construction systems and procedures. Excellence is not an accident or a game of chance, but a deliberate, calculated and planned course of action. You don’t just survive and wait for life to happen (“after all, I’m breathing”). No, bad thought. ASPIRE, SET GOALS, ATTACK your TO DO lists, SET OBJECTIVES, review and revisit existing systems for efficiency and effectiveness, assess QUALITY of products against desired outcome, continue to measure and collect statistics on how you can do it faster and more efficiently, review plans and budgets.
Of course, MEDIOCRITY is better than FAILURE, but it should never be anyone’s ceiling. You’d rather choose between a SUCCESS and a FAIL than be half of each. Similarly, you prefer to be EXCELLENT or just not at all. Wait until you can do excellently. I can work with someone who openly tells me that “Sir, I couldn’t do the job because I realized it would compromise excellence, I’m rescheduling it for a later date when I can do it excellently” than someone who will do it halfheartedly. and you look at the end and you want to die.
Subordinates: Make life easy for your superiors, just be excellent in thought, speech, and conduct. Leaders: model excellence in all your leadership and directions. You achieve excellence when you demonstrate it and show it to your team members. (SHOW ME, NOT JUST READ ME). Government leaders: Just as you were excellent at making timely promises and visiting people on election campaigns, may you also be excellent at keeping your promises. Heads of families: your children will learn excellence or mediocrity from you; you set the pace for them. When they grow up they want to be (their current title) because that’s all they see. Likewise, model excellence if you want to see a lasting legacy from it. They will also pass it on to future generations. Instead of leaving your children a legacy of excellence that all the money you’re sweating for now, they’ll just foolishly spend with no vision for tomorrow. Model excellence and you automatically MODEL A LEGACY.
Reflection Points – Think About This– How is excellence apart from what you do? Do you pay attention to more details or are you comfortable with any type of result? How deliberate and intentional are you when it comes to doing things excellently?
Affirmation Points – Say this to yourself – I am excellent in everything I do. I take care of the small details to produce the desired original result. I teach and model excellence to those with whom I come in contact. I am a role model par excellence. I never settle for mediocrity.
