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When I was a kid, people would constantly speak in admiration of those who were excellent in
whatever they were doing. These could be students who achieved academic excellence, successful
business people, top athletes, celebrities, and so on. Envy aside, no one ever spent any time to think
about why or howthey were excellent. It was seemingly natural for most to just accept that certain
people were meant for excellence while others werent.
As I grew up, I started to form personal goals which I pursued fervently. I would set different goals,
generally anchored on academia and performance-related goals, since the country I lived in
(Singapore) was a meritocratic society. In the process of my goal pursuit, I would experience the
natural process of success and setbacks.
As I gained more experience and observed people who achieved excellence, I started to identify a
certain pattern that linked up successes a pattern of certain principles and beliefs. And when I acted
in accordance to these, I would experience excellence in whatever I did whether it was being on the
deans list, graduating as the top marketing student in my Business School, nabbing a job offer in a
Fortune 100 company against hundreds of applicants, delivering historical record-breaking results
when I was working there, creating my personal excellence blog which has tens of thousands of
readers after a short-span of months, getting overwhelming demand for my coaching services (which
currently has a waiting list of 3 months), and so on. As long as I keep focusing on these key
principles, results would be eminent.
If you have ever looked at the achievements of others and thought Wow, if only I can do that!, or if
you have ever wished that you can perform better, earn more money, make more friends, have better
health, achieve higher level of success, and so on, heres the holler-out to you: You are capable of all
of that. Everyone has all the potential in the world to do whatever it is they dream of or want.
Following these key principles of personal excellence will go a long way in bringing you to excellence:
What is it you are working on? Who are the people who are the best in this area? What are the results
they have achieved? Set your targets to the same level as their best results, or even higher if you are
feeling up to it.
At the moment, Im setting up my school of personal excellence for anyone who has a passion for
personal excellence. My long-term vision for this school is to be as big as the Xaviers School in X-Men.
;) (In fact, I have the picture of Xaviers School up on my vision board since last year!) While this
vision may seem far-fetched to many, its a vision which Im working towards and one which I have
absolutely no doubt will come to life given time and effort.
With every success, comes hard work. Without hard work, you cannot achieve results. People who try
to find the easy way out are kidding themselves if they think they can achieve excellence without
putting in hard work. If you observe around you, the people who seek out get-rich-quick methods are
also the very people who dont achieve much in their lives. Hard work is the universal quality that will
pay off in the long-term. Once you invest the due time and effort, the results will start coming in.
9. Be adaptable.
Adaptability is one of the essential pillars of excellence. As you may already know, change is inevitable
You can either cower in the face of change, learn to deal with it or even turn it into your favor. Be
ready for change at all times and develop a friendly relationship with change.
This also applies to changing your plans. Dont be overly attached to your plans and be prepared to
alter them where needed. If there are certain things you are doing which are not very effective, be
prepared to improvise them or drop them totally.
life is won or lost in the arena of thought. As a man thinketh so is he. Therefore, you must develop the
mindset of excellence for you to attain excellence. In fact, this is the foundation. Think excellent thoughts
always. By the time you think in excellent terms, failure thoughts would not be able to penetrate into you.
Your life will always move in the direction of your dominant thought. You must break yourself free from
those thoughts that limit you in life. You must emancipate yourself from those thoughts that will not move
your life forward; thoughts of poverty, failure, sickness, pain, lack etc. dont set any limitation in your mind.
Dont be limited in your mind, whatever becomes real in your mind, God will make real in your life. So, fill
your mind with thoughts of excellence and success always, then you will always exhibit that in the reality.
2. Read books written by excellent minds.
Excellent minds are those great people around you that you can really acknowledge. When you read the
books written by these people, you will begin to rub mind with them, you will begin to think the way they
think, act the way they act; even some of them who have died their books still transform lives for the
better, even the generations after them, like Napoleon Hill, Keneth Hagin, Norman Vincent Peal, (of
blessed memmories) and others who are still alive like Dr Mylse Munroe, Bishop David Oyedepo, Brain
Tracy, Jim Rohn, Dr Robert Schuller Rev Sam Adeyemi, Anthony Robins, Robert Kiyosaki and Dr Mike
Murdock my Daddy (Pst. E. A. Adeboye) and so forth. These people have been there, they should be able
to tell you how to get there. Reading according to research affects your thinking, and your thought directly
or indirectly affects your performance. So, when you dont read excellent books how will you have
excellent thoughts. Readers are leaders, committed ones are great leaders.
3 Identify your key area of optimum performance.
You must be able to identify an area through which you can perform to your best ability and be
recognized. Like my humble self, I can sing, write, act on stage do several other things according to my
gifted ability, but I found out that writing brings out the best in me much more than other gifted areas
because people are being blessed and they always respond positively beyond measure to my writings
with great transformation in their lives upon reading my articles or write-ups.What I am trying to express
here is thats you must clearly identify one skill that can help you most, then concentrate on it, develop
your skill and update your knowledge inline with it.
4. Desire it intensely.
This is the core aspect of excellence. What you dont desire, you dont get, and even when you get it by
serendipity you dont value nor respect it. You must desire excellence intensely. That is when it can be
accepted by your subconscious mind. Then you subconscious mind upon reception can now direct
thoughts towards your conscious mind and then bring it into its physical reality.
Having said all, can you now see that you too can attain the position of excellence in your field of
endeavor if you can think in terms of excellence, read books by excellent minds, identify an area at which
you can perform at the optimum level and desire it intensely! Nothing can stop you if you can do all these.
How true is that? Have you ever seen people play football without knowing where the goalposts are?
Theyll be running up and down the field the whole time with the ball and not scoring any goal! Likewise,
we need to set our goals for us to move somewhere.
Dont let your goal be just any goal to. Make it a big, bold and audacious goal one which will truly excite
and inspire you. Its pointless to have a goal that will automatically be achieved without much of a fight..
If Ive been doing things I hate all this while, I wouldnt even have made any headway in them. The reason
why Im continuously inspired to write and bring The Personal Excellence Blog to greater heights day after
day is because Im passionate about what Im doing. Im passionate about achieving excellence. Im
passionate about helping others achieve excellence. I can do this day after day, for the rest of my life
without even getting paid for it. If I have tried to do something else, say become an accountant or an
engineer, I would never have lasted. Theres nothing wrong with those occupations, just that they arent
what Im passionate about.
What are you passionate about? What do you love to do? Pursue that, and let the love of what you do
drive you to greatness.
3. Have a strategy
Strategy is more than just planning. A plan is simply what you are going to do. Strategy is like your
blueprint for success; the secret keys that will guarantee your victory. A more layman term for strategy
would be working smart.
Every goal has its own set of strategies to guarantee its victory. In all my goals, Ill always spend proper
time to develop a strategy. What are the obstacles Ill face? How can I overcome these obstacles? What is
the best mode of action to achieve this goal? How can I achieve this goal faster and better? How have
people who achieved this goal done this? These are some questions I consider. And once I develop my
strategy, I set out to achieve my goal. Undoubtedly, strategizing helps me achieve my goals with ease.
Theres no matter way to succeed than to study the successful those who have been here, done that.
When I first started The Personal Excellence Blog, I studied the A-List bloggers, such as Steve Pavlina,
Darren Rowse from Problogger, and read a lot of materials by them. I also read other big sites such
as Copyblogger and Yaro Staraks Entrepreneurs Journey. Because of that Ive learned a lot on what I need
to do to have a successful personal development blog. Even today I continue to study and learn from
bigger bloggers so I can grow quickly.
Who are the people who are successful in the goals you want to achieve? What have they done which
has enabled them to succeed? What can you learn from them?
Goal setting is about getting from point A to point B. When we set goals, we have in mind a set of things
we need to do. If we complete these XYZ set of things, we will naturally achieve the goal. Right?
Wrong. When we are creating our plan, we are doing it from the point of view of someone who has never
achieved the goal before. So how would we even know these XYZ things are what we need to achieve the
goal? They are nothing more than just assumptions of what it takes to achieve the goal. It might be 50%,
60% or even 70% accurate, but we have no way of knowing if its 100% accurate. Most likely its not, else
we would already have achieved the goal long ago, wouldnt we?
So when you set out for our goals, its important you overcommit your resources. Come up with what you
think you need to achieve the goal, then double it up, or even triple if possible. That way, you can be
almost certain you will achieve it. Even if your original estimations are right and there are no need to up
the efforts, then youll be exceeding your goal when the results are out, which is more than fantastic.
6. Keep reading
The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cant read them. ~ Mark
Twain
The more you read, the more knowledge you gain. There is no end to what you can read. Seth Godin,
best selling author on Business Week and New York Times, buys 400 new books every year, and
probably reads a lot more than that. Lately, Ive been frequenting the local library to borrow books and
enrich myself. The book Im currently reading is How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to
Be by Jack Canfield, and its a great read. With the wide availability of information on the internet, theres
even more reason to read now than ever.
7. Work hard
Theres working smart (tip #3 Have a strategy), then theres working hard. In order to succeed, you have
to both work smart and work hard.
And working hard really isnt all about toiling and sweating and dreading what you are doing. If you are
doing what you love (tip #2 Do what you love), then it really isnt work at all. I work hard day in day out,
writing new articles my blog, coaching others and building my business, but thats because I love what Im
doing so much that I cant get enough of it. It doesnt even feel like work. It feels like Ive won the lotto,
except that its a lifetime lotto. :D
Are you working as hard as you could? How can you put in more effort in what you are doing? The more
effort you put into your goals, the more results you will see.
Feedback gives us a different perspective one which you cannot see because you are looking from your
point of view. Ive learned a tremendous lot from my readers and clients feedback, which in turn helps me
to write better articles and be a better coach day after day. All of us have blind spots we cant see and
these blind spots are exactly whats preventing us from achieving results. The more feedback you get, the
more aware you become, and the better you will become.