On Friday I asked the elementary students to define excellence. I received many vague and complicated answers… some that fit the bill and others that were quite confusing. Then I heard a simple yet remarkable answer from one of our 2nd graders. They said, “Excellent is better than great.” It’s a simple definition, but it really wraps it up nicely. Excellence is better than great.

So how do we achieve excellence? This is difficult because even with our simplified definition, excellence is subjective. To be able to follow that definition, we would have to all agree on a universal standard of greatness. That is not going to happen. But we can look at a specific scenario and determine what those involved would consider excellent. For instance, many of my students set goals to get straight A’s this quarter. In that instance it is not hard to determine what excellence looks like. It would be excellent for them to meet their goals. Furthermore, in a classroom setting, you can get to know a specific teacher’s expectations and learn what they consider excellent. 

In many situations, you can generally achieve excellence by exceeding other’s expectations. If your boss asks you to try to bring in a few additional customers this month and you double your sales from last month, that would be perceived as excellent. If your teacher asks you to write a two-page essay, and you give them a two-page essay written at a college level, they will consider that to be excellent. If your parents ask you to clean your room while they are out, and you decide to clean your room, the living room, and the kitchen, they might ask whose child you are, but they will also consider that to be excellent. We live in a world that is competitive. To be the best and get the best opportunities in life, you cannot settle for good or sometimes even great. To get noticed, you need to exceed expectations. 

It is not sustainable to try to exceed what is expected of you in all areas of your life. You will burn out. Rather you should pick a few key areas and do your best to excel there. Some things are okay to be done at a good/great level or even just a satisfactory level. You cannot be excellent at everything; you do not have enough time or energy. If you are a planner, you really compartmentalize your life into buckets of what is acceptable to survive. Maybe you decide that you really want to excel in your career. This means that other things like hobbies and interests might have to be done at a good or satisfactory level. That’s okay. Once you master excelling in one area, it will become easier to maintain, and you can focus on other areas. For instance, education is a big part of excelling in a career. While you are pursuing a degree, it might feel all-consuming, and you might have to let other areas of your life fall back to acceptable or passable to accommodate the additional effort needed to excel at school. But school is temporary, there will come a day when that is not a part of what allows you to excel at work, and then that time and effort can be redistributed. 

At the end of the day, the biggest thing that will allow us to excel is motivation. If you are having trouble motivating yourself to excel, you might need to take another look at your goals. If you find that this activity is not contributing to your overall goals, then you might better understand why you lack motivation. From there you can determine what defines success for you in that instance. If the activity in question is a mandatory activity that you deem a waste of time and a non-contributor to your goals, then you can decide that your measure of success for that activity is simply completing it. Don’t waste your energy excelling on things that do not contribute to your dreams. Check the box, complete the task, and put your energy into excelling where you need to. 

-        Bria