Where does excellence live? Is it something we need to search for? Or is it something we already have in some way?

Excellence is a state of being, its something you can really feel when it’s there, and sense its absence when it’s not. But how do we find excellence in the everyday situations and circumstances that makes up our life?

“Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
-Aristotle

At times even the best of us feel like we’re not performing at the top of our game; when our heart isn’t in what we’re doing it is clear what’s going on, at least in this case we know who to blame. However it gets more tricky when we go out into the world looking to cast blame.

Sacrifice the Scapegoat

The urge to find the villain who stole your best work, or robbed you of the opportunity to shine can be irresistible. In work situations the blame game can be quite toxic to productivity, let alone counterproductive to your career. Even if there is a real conflict at the office, your casting of the villain (your co-worker, manager, or even the entire company) damns you to a path of personal dissatisfaction, ostrification, and growing tension.

No matter how convincing or right you are in the story you’ve written about your situation (are you thinking of something in particular now?), notice that it has become difficult, if not impossible in this situation to focus on the task at hand let alone be inspired enough to want to give it your best effort and attention.

sometimes when we point the mirror on ourselves in this way and really reflect in an honest way, it makes sense that being the most right in the situation doesn’t make a bit of difference if we hate our situation either way.

Wanting excellence is one thing, being excellence is the key

The time to start giving your best is NOW. People come up with “perfect pictures” of what they would like to have in their lives, idealized notions that often focus on contrasting what is wrong about now, or about shortcomings that should be fixed

The reality is that we must focus on living our lives now rather than in our hopes and criticisms, or haves and have nots. The right motivation and aspiration is still key, however what really counts is being on the top of your game wherever you find yourself. This means giving up complaining about circumstances, your job, your co-worker, your family. All of these worries and complaints build up to become an invisible mountain in the way of directing our best efforts to where it counts in our lives.

The un-stuck pony

An example from my early career can be illuminating in this discussion. I once worked at a company where I was unhappy. People would ask me about my job, and I would quickly deliver my main complaint, “I don’t have any creative control, what I’m doing doesn’t matter.” And a funny thing occurred; the more I complained, the worse I felt, and the more I hoped for a better situation to arise, the more I felt stuck.

It is a ironic that the very complaint I had about the job not only blinded me to anything that wasn’t that complaint, but it started becoming a self fulfilling prophacy. At work, the complaint began to show up more than me, a usually energetic and happy person. Despite the fact that I thought I could “fake it,” I could not, and it was reflected in my lagging performance reviews and worsening dead-end (or so it felt) assignments.

One manager commented in a review that something seemed off, I asked for feedback, however he couldn’t really put his finger on any specific indicator; looking back it makes sense that my internal feelings were rubbing off and the result was that I was giving up. The whole situation bled other areas of my life, and my personal satisfaction took a big hit as a result.

Fire the critic

If the director of a movie felt the same lack of control that many of us feel in our lives, do you think a movie would ever be made? The director has the vision for the future, and he also has the plan of action. Whether it is perfect or flawed, the key is in tapping the focus necessary to getting the job at hand done.

In the situation I described about my career I felt trapped and unhappy. What I had forgotten was that not only was I the director in this story, I was the writer and lead actor. The reason I was so unhappy was I felt out of control, but in fact I had given my control over to my circumstances.

We may not have the luxury of a Hollywood budget, but if strive to build ourselves up to reach higher aspirations in our own lives then we must fire the critic. Our critic would rather complain about others, and second guess our own everyday actions rather than focus on making the best movie we can today with the budget and resources we have TODAY. The critic has a place, we can evaluate our results and apply lessons learned to future projects. The critic’s place, however, is not the director’s chair.

The elephant in the womb

So now we’ve arrived at the critical “what’s the point” moment.

It starts with being at the wheel, being responsible for your choices as well as your circumstances….

MORE to come!