Volume 02, Issue 07: Autograph Your Work With Excellence

We are all capable of excellence. Therefore, we shortchange ourselves whenever we fail to produce our best work. It may be easier to be floppy and get by being average at everything. But if we want to go far in life, we must tread the path of most resistance; we must aim for excellence.

Take care of business. Be excellent in all that you do. Build a reputation for being consistent and reliable. Excellence is doing something right the first time and doing it well. It is the art of exemplary performance, a personal responsibility.

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 embrace 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. 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