Filed under: Aliveness, Executive leadership development, Leadership | Tags: Alive at Work, Joe Contrera, Leadership
At different times and with different clients when I ask them if they believe they are achieving excellence, too often I hear …
No, I wouldn’t say excellence … But we’re better than we were 2 years ago!
My first thought is always … What if you were mediocre 2 years ago?
So now you’re a little better than mediocre … and you’re okay with that?
Comparing yourself to what you did 2 years keeps you trapped in the past. It prevents you from taking risks (so you can feel safe) and it keeps you chained to average or poor past performance.
But what if you were doing really well 2 years ago?
Even if you were, comparing yourself to that point in time only tells you what you might have been capable of … back then.
It still doesn’t help you achieve your optimal level of excellence NOW.
Besides, your customers don’t care what you did for them 2 years, 6 months, or 6 days ago they only care what you do for them TODAY!
Achieving excellence means you continuously push yourself beyond where you feel comfortable and into new territory.
It means that you embrace change, fear, and new ideas.
Notice I didn’t say ACCEPT change, fear, and new ideas … I said EMBRACE change … Their is a big difference.
So are you achieving excellence? If not here’s a few thoughts:
6 Thoughts on Achieving Excellence:
- Excellence is not a place you arrive at. If it was, you wouldn’t be there very long because as soon as you stop striving for excellence … you lose it!
- Excellence is a state of mind (belief) that needs to permeate every crevice of your business and your life.
- It takes less than a nanosecond to decide to “be” excellent (that’s step 1).
- Once you decide simply start acting with excellence in everything that you do (and that’s step 2).
- And when you get stuck (not if, but when) simply ask yourself this question … What would an excellent (leader, sales person, parent, teacher, husband, wife, etc) do in a situation like this?
- And then as Nike says … JUST DO IT!
One last thought … If you want to be a student of excellence …
Remember what psychologist Warren Bennis said …
“Excellence is a better teacher than mediocrity.”
Now go “be” excellent!
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