Equipping young women professionals with young families to find fulfillment, contentment and joy as mothers and home makers without losing sight of who they are as women.

Volume 01 Issue 16: Tread the Path of Most Resistance

Excellence is doing something right the first time and doing it well. It is the art of exemplary performance, a personal responsibility. We are all capable of excellence. Since everyone is unique, each of us was designed to be the best at something. This implies that we shortchange ourselves whenever we fail to produce our best work. It is easier to be floppy and get by being average at everything. But if we want to go far in life, we must aim for excellence, the path of most resistance.

Excellence is about being faithful with what we have been entrusted with. It is the stewardship of our resources, talents and skills. We are warned that if we are not good stewards of other people’s resources, we won’t be trusted with our own. But it is also right to say that if we are not faithful with our own resources, we risk losing the little or much we have. A story is told in the Bible of a servant who wasn’t faithful with one talent he was entrusted with. That talent was taken away from him and given to the one who had made good use of what was entrusted to him. Hence the feeling that those who have always seem to get more.

There isn’t much satisfaction in doing something just to finish. That is not the way to live. I believe there is a desire for excellence in each of us. We want to be outstanding at the things we do. Excellence is not something we do just when people are watching or for people to see and applaud us. Excellence is for ourselves. We feel good when we do things well. Excellence is meant to make us feel good. We are made after God’s own image. When we operate at our best, we are like him, excellent. God looked at everything he created and said that it was good. We should be able to say the same about our work. We ought to autograph our work with excellence.

Discipline yourself to produce your best work. Raise the standards for yourself.  Until we hold ourselves to a higher standard, we will never rise above the mediocre. Only you know the quality of work you can produce. Move away from the culture of doing things in a shoddy manner and aim for precision. Refuse to take anything less than the best from yourself. Once you decide to do things well, you will find that your brain will start being precise without thinking about it.

When we embrace excellence, our focus shifts from competing with others to outdoing ourselves. A little competition with others is healthy but the larger part of competition in life should be against ourselves. Because deep down we know we can do better. We can rise up and do things well.

Lillian Chebosi