Striving for Excellence
Last week, I wrote about embracing imperfection. This week’s blog post might sound contradictory to that idea. However, it is not. We must be okay with not being perfect, but that does not mean accepting mediocrity. We have the ability to do great things, and we must strive for excellence. It is imperative that we achieve greatness because to accept anything less than excellence denies our worth. Who we are is not ADHDers. We are human beings endowed with innate dignity. That is why we must strive for excellence.
What Is Excellence?
The dictionary that came with my computer defines excellence as “the quality of being outstanding or extremely good.” I don’t know about you, but that seems rather vague. I did some googling and found this quote:
“Excellence is the gradual result of always striving to do better.”
To me, this quote makes the definition of excellence more accessible. It provides a roadmap to achieving excellence. We see that excellence is a habitual thing. It comes from continuous effort. I am reminded of another quote:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”
Making Excellence a Habit
Ah, here is the million-dollar question: How do we make a habit of excellence or always striving to do better? I think the easiest way to build a habit is to build off of an already existing habit. This is called habit stacking. I first heard about habit stacking in James Clear’s book Atomic Habits. The idea is to attach a new habit to an old habit. For example, one could say, “After I brush my teeth in the morning, I will take the dog out.” This ensures that the dog is taken out to go potty and does not go inside the house. If you do not struggle to brush your teeth in the morning and you do struggle to remember to take the dog out, perhaps this strategy is for you. The other part of forming a new habit is setting a reminder to do the habit. Taking the aforementioned example, you could leave a sticky note by your toothbrush with a reminder to take the dog out.
Now, how do we apply this habit stacking stuff to excellence? We start by finding something we do well already and something we would like to improve. Everyone has something they do well. Everyone. You might throw dirt on your accomplishments and not recognize it as something you do well, but there is at least one thing everyone does well. Let’s choose a ridiculous example. Say, the only thing you can think of that you do well is play video games. You might habit stack something before you play video games. If you want to get healthy, you might say, “Before I play video games, I will go for a walk.” This is the first step towards excellence – creating a healthy habit. From there, you can work to add more healthy habits, and before you know it, you will be pursuing excellence.