Personal development - Achieving excellence and taking yourself to a higher level

Walking the path of personal development and achieving excellence

Achieving excellence in any sphere is the desire of every human being who walks the path of personal development and self-improvement. Potential is what all of us have, some of us hone our skills in order to excel in those skill areas. Achieving excellence would begin with setting high standards for yourself, and not being satisfied with your current performance. Pursuit of excellence challenges you to continuous improvement. It is the constant need to be the best in your area of operation. Pursuing excellence would mean competition and comparison, not with people outside, but with your own achievements and setting your own standards. The motivation and the drive to seek excellence is an ever-increasing desire within oneself. 

Pursuing excellence taking yourself to higher ground

Set your own standards. Achieving excellence calls for frequent self-assessment and reviewing of performance. A realistic assessment and review of one’s potential is crucial for achieving excellence. Making continuous improvement in processes is what helps one to achieve excellence. It is better to set higher standards and miss, than to just accept things the way they are or the way it is currently done.

Be your own critic. Being your own critic does not mean being negative. Being negative comes from having low-self esteem, but a person in pursuit of excellence is his/her best critic. For this, you need a high degree of self-confidence and a great regard for your attitude and abilities. When you are your own best critic, criticism from outside hardly affects you or your performance. Being your best critic constantly raises the bar of your performance and goads you towards your higher objectives.

Direct yourself towards achieving excellence

Having a vision and a mission statement You cannot achieve excellence without clarity of vision and a clear statement of your mission. Your efforts need to be goal directed. Every move you make needs to have direction and purpose to ensure that every investment made in terms of effort, time, skill and knowledge produces optimal results.

Setting and achieving goals Goals are of two kinds – one is a very broad statement of what you want to achieve and the second is goals that are specific, measurable, realistic, achievable, time bound.

Pursuing excellence through continuous improvement

Improving your skills In pursuing excellence, one is constantly forced to develop their talents, skills and potential. This opens up a huge avenue for learning and betterment. There is never a moment when you feel you know it all. You will always have the need to learn something.

Effective thinking. To achieve excellence an individual has to wear his/her thinking cap all the time. You learn to use your logical thinking skills to understand the way things work. You have to use your lateral thinking to find solutions and to innovate. You have to use your intuition to make hunches and take calculated risks. To achieve excellence you need to need to be alert and perceptive to what is happening around you.

Accept challenges. Often, we are so used to our routines and happy in our comfort zones that we do not seek challenges. Challenges are what force us out of our comfort zones to achieve the impossible. Though challenges cause us to be uncomfortable, once we overcome a challenge, it increases our self-confidence and our self-esteem. This causes us to review and modify our opinions about our ability and attitude. Challenge are what makes us grow phenomenally.

Personal development and determination to pursue excellence

Testing new waters To achieve excellence you need to come out of your shell and test new waters. You are constantly nudged to interact with professionals and people outside the scope of your normal activities, present your ideas, develop skills of presentation, public speaking and social interaction which call for all round development.

Leadership. Your pursuit of excellence puts you ahead of the pack and throws you up as a natural leader who sets his/her own standards. Leading people efficiently is great responsibility that comes as a part of personal development. While leading people, you learn not only how to manage people, but also how to inspire the best in them. This becomes a great source of motivation to self and others.

Handling competition. Competition is something that stirs us out of our complacency. Competition needs to be embraced, as it constantly spurs you on ahead to be the best. Competition should always be approached in a healthy and balanced manner. It is a means of putting your self-discipline and control into action. Instead of seeing competition as your enemy, if you could just direct your aggression, anger and energy towards progression, you could achieve outstanding results. It is focussing on the enemy that causes us to falter and fail.

Prioritizing teaches you to work smart, not hard. Achieving excellence is all about working smart and not hard. Priorities give direction and purpose to your every move and ensure that time is utilized efficiently.

Achieving a balance Very often people mistake pursuing excellence and perfectionism to mean the one and the same thing. While perfectionism is more on the lines of intolerance towards mistakes, achieving excellence is all about learning from your mistakes and growing from them. Pursuing excellence calls for greater work life balance, reduction of stress and a healthier and a happier life.

Achieving excellence the journey of personal development and self improvement

There is no end to your pursuit of excellence. Life is all about personal development, self-improvement and achieving excellence as we constantly want to improve every facet of our life. Pursuing excellence should not be restricted just to work. It should extend towards your personal life and contributing towards  making you a better individual. In the pursuit of excellence do not forget to take others along with you, make sure that you contribute to their self improvement also.