Smart Living Rule 2 – Strive for Excellence But Not Perfection

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• Tags: Excellence, improve, opportunity, perfection, Success

Are you sowing the seeds required to produce a great life?

Striving for excellence is an essential part of smart living.  Why?  Because, in life, you reap what you sow.  It is a basic law.  You can’t plant weeds and expect corn to grow.

When we put our best foot forward in everything we do, then life rewards us accordingly.  It may not be immediate or exactly what we expected, but I am convinced that striving for excellence gets you a lot further than the alternative.

If you do what successful people do, then you will achieve success.  This is smart living.  On the other hand, if the results you are getting in your life are less than satisfactory, then you know you need to make a change.  Sow excellence and you will reap excellent results!

What does striving for excellence look like?

Excellence exceeds people’s expectations.  In a world of mediocrity, excellence makes you stand out in the crowd.  It is putting your best foot forward in all that you do.  Excellence is evident in the fruit it produces.

Look at your life.  What results are you getting?  As I stated above, you get back exactly what you put in.  Are you planting weeds or corn?

Think about the results you are producing in the following arenas of your life:

• Your marriage
• Your children
• Your career
• Your friendships
• Your physical health
• Your spiritual life

Are you getting the results you want and desire in each of these?  You might be planting corn in one place, but weeds in another.

What if I were to look at your home or your desk?  Would it be self-evident that you strive for excellence in all you do?  Is it time to clean up a few areas of your life?

Have the common excuses for not pursuing excellence become a trap for you in your life?  Don’t let them continue to rob you of the success and superior results that you desire!

Strive for excellence and the world will become your oyster!  You can begin to strive for excellence in all these areas starting today!

A pitfall to avoid on your path to excellence

I’d like to offer one word of caution before we look at some ways to get started striving for excellence.  There is a trap that you can fall into if you aren’t careful while pursuing excellence.

The trap is called perfection.

Perfectionism is an evil mutation of striving for excellence.  A perfectionist is often a control freak that clubs people over the head trying to reach some flawless ideal in details that often don’t even matter.  They are focused on the external without regard for how much they hurt others along their path to getting what they want.

In striving for excellence, there is a balance.  Yes, I want to do things the right way, but not at the expense of all the people around me including myself.  There is a point where things are “good enough” because the work required to produce better isn’t worth the toll it would take upon me and the others in my life.

If you think you might be a perfectionist or a control freak (they are usually one in the same really), then read my article about becoming a control freak to see if it fits.  If so, then stop it!

Assignment: Start striving for excellence in life today!

In each of my rules for smart living, I am outlining some assignments to help you get started.  These are practical things that you can do to help yourself start practicing what I preach!

Here are the smart living assignments for this rule:

1.  Learn more about how to strive for excellence in your life

If you’ve read this far, then you are probably the kind of person that really wants to put excellence to work in your life.  I congratulate you!  The vast majority of people have long since moved on to easier reading. 

You are likely already a top achiever that wants even more out of life.  That’s great!  Let me offer you some additional material on striving for excellence that will help you reach even higher. 

Here are four other articles I wrote on striving for excellence.  I think you will find them useful:

• Striving for Excellence
• Gaining Perspective Helps to Achieve Excellence in Life
• Striving for Excellence: Quotes That Will Guide and Inspire
• Striving for Excellence: Quotes You Should Live By

I really believe there is some fantastic value in reading each of these articles.  They will fire you up about seeking excellence in your life!

2.  Make a plan to start striving for excellence

Do you agree with me that striving for excellence is smart living?  If so, then why not take action to start having a more excellent life today?  Here is some guidance to help you get started!

1. Identify the opportunities to improve – Think about the people in your life (your spouse, your children, your boss, etc.) as customers.  Who do you need to start serving in a more excellent manner to improve your life and theirs?
2. Define what excellence looks like – Once you’ve listed the people in your life that you need to serve with excellence, then talk to them and find out what they want or need from you.  Build a clear picture of what it would take to exceed their expectations!
3. Start taking steps toward your vision – Make a list of the specific things you can start doing today to achieve excellence based on the input you receive from your talks.  Take action and live an excellent life!  People will notice.

Make striving for excellence in all you do a habit.  Let people know that they can count on you for a job well done and a live well-lived!

Striving for excellence will get you on the path to smart living!

Start sowing excellence and the harvest you reap will increase tenfold!  You will experience increases and windfalls in your life greater than you ever expected.  Let excellence spill over into every area of your life.  No matter how messed up or hopeless the situation may seem, striving for excellence will turn things around!

Follow this link to discover all the rules for Smart Living.

Photo by Noël Zia Lee