What does Personal Excellence mean to you? Does your life exhibit it? How does one obtain it? Today let’s explore the following aspects of this important virtue:

• Define personal excellence.
• Start with self-awareness.
• Define excellence in each area of your life.
• Find a great mentor.

Definition of Personal Excellence: being the best version of you that you possibly can by pursuing continuous self-improvement.

Let’s break that down.

The best version of you:

•  No one can be better at being you than yourself.
•  You have unique giftings and strengths and personality traits.
•  You have your own vision of how you can impact your world.
•   It is important that you do not compare or compete to be someone else.

Self-awareness is a great starting point. Are you aware of your gifts and strengths? Are you aware of your personality traits? Our course offers three personality and strength tests to help identify your giftings.

One good source is personality and strength test by Myers Briggs, a student-friendly variation.  

Once you know your strengths you have a guide to where you best fit. A palm tree is majestic in its natural climate zone but will not survive in a cold weather climate. Location matters! Be where you will thrive!

Let’s move on to the excellence part, now.

How do you define excellence? Going above and beyond the normal expectation is one definition.

To explore personal excellence, we need to break it down in several areas. What expectations do you have for your life and how can you raise the bar?

This involves setting personal goals for each area of your life and committing to continuous improvement. Some examples might include:

• Your relationships: what actions will raise your relationships to the next level?
• Your career: how can you grow in your career, improve your customer relations, or make a more impactful difference in the lives of others?
• Your spiritual growth:  do you devote enough time to this area?
• Your health: staying on top of your health and being proactive is key so how can you improve?

There are many other areas to examine when talking about personal excellence, but these are a good starting point.

A great mentor is invaluable. And finally, find someone who is living in personal excellence in each of these areas already. You will likely need a different mentor for different areas. A mentor will share invaluable life lessons and speed your journey to personal excellence.  A mentor will be able to objectively see your growth when you are feeling progress is not being made. I cannot stress enough how invaluable mentors will be in your life.

If you cannot find a person to be your mentor there are many inspirational books available, as well. One such book is Unbeatable: Seven Pillars of Personal Excellence by J. Tyrone Marcus.

Remember, personal excellence boils down to setting goals for each area of your life and being the best version of you in those areas that you can be. 

There is not a point where you will “get there”. Personal Excellence is about relentless pursuit of self-improvement, and in the end, my friend, this is all that is expected of us.                        

 “Excellence is not an act, it’s a habit.”

                                                        -Aristotle

-Jan Jones