Waiting

So if you’re waiting on God, wait on Him right to the end. Hos. 12:6, “Wait on your God continually.” Wait until God answers.

4/25/11

A More Excellent Life

From the Leader's Edge Column, by John Maxwell

Do you need help in your career? Your marriage? Or maybe you're searching for a better life in general? If so, consider pursuing excellence, which is a generally consistent state of high quality that may bring to mind unmatched performance, unusual expertise, or consistent high-quality performance.  In our mnds, we often associate excellence with talent. To be the best, surely you have to be gifted, right?  Excellence has taught me that talent, while important in no way explains excellence. 

Consider this: are people born with a natural gift of marriage excellence?  No matter what area of life you want to improve, you can develop it to a level of excellence with a little know-how.  In fact, the primary pathway to excellence has 3 main steps, none of which depends on talent.
  1. Find your passion - you are nothing unless it comes from your heart. If you perform functions only and go to work only to do processes, then you are effectively retired.  And sadly, most people are retired by age 28.  You have to bring passion, commitment and caring - that's what makes you a human being. People of excellence love what they do.  They have learned how to fuel the fire that keeps them moving. What does a passionate person look like? - they work with their whole heart, they work with undistracted attention, and they work with maximum energy.
  2. Never cease practicing - passion won't take you anywhere unless you combine it with disciplined practice.  Practice is not the thing you do once you're good, its the thing you do that makes you good.
  3. Honor your values - we all could give examples of talented, charismatic people who sabotaged their careers by abandoning their values.  Passion and practice bring excellence, but character eventually topples talent. People cannot climb beyond the limitations of their character.  Eventually, the limelight of success brings to light the cracks in their integrity. 
The fact that excellence isn't something a person is born with should be encouraging ... all you have to do is determine what your passion is and then put in the hours of practice. As long as you stick with it and honor your values along the way, you will reach a level of excellence.

I LOVE THIS ARTICLE!  :)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Blog Archive

RW Followers