Is it an idea? Is it a way of life? Recently it was described to me this way: Excellence is the result of caring more than others think is wise, risking more than others think is safe, dreaming more than others think is practical and expecting more than others think is possible.
This concept can manifest itself in many ways. Most people think of if only in terms of a dream or lifelong goal. But if you apply it in your daily life, you will be a much happier person.
I like to think of it in terms of taking control. I can’t affect what goes on around me, but I can affect what I do about it, and what I think about it. In everything I do, I have a high standard.
Some would argue that if you hate your job, or what’s going on in your life, the only way to reach for excellence is to find something else to do and go after it. That’s a part of it. The other part is to have excellence in real time, in everything you do in every moment of your day.
Let’s say you work in an office. You spend most of your day filing, doing data entry, maybe talking on the phone with customers. You might consider the work menial, boring, perhaps beneath your level of skill. If you have that perception, you will never achieve excellence, in anything. You have to change the way you look at things.
What happens if you apply the concept of excellence to your daily work?
Let’s say you are filing, and you find a paper that has slipped through the folders and is at the bottom of the file drawer. You pick it up and see that it is dated three years ago, and belongs with records that have been boxed up and sent to archives.
What do you do? Excellence demands that you put it with its ‘mates’ in the archive area. You determine that doing this is going to take an extra twenty minutes.
But what if you don’t spend the time to put it in the correct place? You say, who cares, it’s only one paper, I’ll just put it in with current.
A few years go by, and someone needs to access archives to find that one particular paper. You took the shortcut and didn’t file it there. So now it will never be found. This potentially caused great inconvenience to someone.
However, if you took the time to file the paper correctly, you’ve unwittingly saved the day. It may have been needed for a very important project. You made it easier for someone else.
When you took that extra time three years ago, all those scenarios went through your head. Everything you do affects someone else. If you do things with excellence, the effect is always positive
It may feel like a waste of time to investigate details when something isn’t working right. In fact, it can be downright annoying. Especially if you get sidetracked and end up spending way more time than you thought you should.
Having high standards changes your outlook. No matter what’s happening, you have control over how you conduct yourself. It will make you stand out from the crowd. It will get you noticed. People will know you are someone that can be trusted. You are the person that can find the answer and will always do the right thing. You are a magnet for good.
Excellence makes you an expert, and you can be an expert in anything. Excellence will help you reach your goals, and keep you going when others quit.
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