Reasons to step out of your comfort zone and do something

Excellence is the ability to be outstanding. It is the end product of performing above standards. It is always achieved by strive to be the best and zeal to deliver extremely good result. In the words of Colin Powell, “ If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude.” Excellence is all about the habit of being the best. It involves a lot of work over a period of time and it is what distinguishes successful people. Nobody starts becoming excellent from the womb. Many of us have abilities that we have not explored, we have skills that we are reluctant to use. If we want to be excellent, we will have to make out the best of those skills, we have to explore our abilities to the fullest. Les Brown said “ The graveyard is the richest place on earth, because it is here that you will find all the hopes and dreams that were never fulfilled, the books that were never written, the songs that were never sung, the inventions that were never shared, the cures that were never discovered, all because someone was too afraid to take that first step, keep with the problem, or determined to carry out their dream.” Excellence is not reserved for any group of people, it is meant for everybody, only if we will put ourselves to work. Excellence doesn’t come on a platter of gold which makes many of us want to settle for just good.

Achieving excellence is never easy as it requires a whole of hard work and as such it is expected that they will be obstacles that deter people from striving for excellence. A look of people at the beginning of an assignment aim for the best but along the line many drop due to various factors. A look at few things that might be an obstacle to achieving excellence below: Fear: This is a common problem that discourage a whole of people from pursuing their dreams. It usually range from the fear of failure to fear of not being good enough. Fear has a way of blocking you from recognizing even the things you can do without stress. If you must achieve excellence, you must conquer fear, you must learn how to motivate yourself and look above the thing making you to be afraid. The feeling of inadequate preparation: Sometimes when encountered with a challenge, the feeling of not being adequately ready comes in. The feeling of querying if you have attained the height to do that. Many people are afraid of accepting new challenges because they feel they are not perfect yet. An example is when you are in a class and you have already believed that there are classmates that are intelligent and even read more than you, and you are in a state where you don’t see yourself coming the 1st in the class after an exam. The truth is that there is nobody that is not capable of being the best, once adequate work is put in place. Lack of focus: In the pursuit of excellence, you must be focused. You must have a goal of what you want to achieve. You don’t come casually and except things to move just like that. And you must be ready to advance without forgetting your goals. Fear of criticism: You can never satisfy everybody, you are not an ice-cream seller. Many are afraid of what people will say, how people will think their idea is weird. It is not your business to know what they will think or say. If you excel, people will talk, if you don’t, people will still talk, so why not excel. The criticism of people shouldn’t discourage you from striving for excellence.

Everybody seems to be the best, whether at work, school or career. As we all know that excellence requires a lot of work and determination, we need to find out things that we can do in order to increase our opportunity of being great. There are no shortcuts to excellence, it involves making up your mind to take up the challenge to excel. Everybody has the ability to achieve excellence. There are tips that one can apply in order to achieve excellence. Be passionate: Passion entails doing what you love. Passion pushes you to do everything with all your heart which in turn increases your chances of a quality result. Doing what you love makes it fun, without stress and you are likely going to do it well because it gives you satisfaction. So you need to assess yourself, find out what you are good at and what you love doing because you need a strong desire so as to achieve your dreams. John Eliot said “ You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.” Many people don’t enjoy the work they do, they get tired of everything about the work which leads to them being less productive. They are often seen complaining about one thing or the other, up to complaining about team members. They don’t commit themselves to the production of quality result.

People without passion for what they do are often mediocre, they are not often at their best. Passion is the stimulant of commitment, it makes you work against obstacles Set realistic goalsIf you want to achieve anything in life, goals are necessary as they give us purpose and are used to measure progress. It is needed in the pursuit of excellence. Goals can be short term or long term which must be realistic. The long term goals should be broken down to strands of manageable bits of small goals. In this way it is very much easier to achieve. Sometimes when you set long term goals, they seem to be impossible but when you break it down, you see that it is never impossible to achieve. Every goal must have strong plans laid down for its actualization. Define your goals and what you want to achieve in life. Even if you have got the best skills and talents, if it is not matched with a goal, it ends up being a waste. Your goals should be big enough to stretch you. It must be strong enough to draw you out of your comfort zone and inspire you. Paulo Coelho said “ Whenever you want to achieve something, keep your eyes open, concentrate and make sure you know exactly what it is you want. No one can hit their target with their eyes closed.” There is no need of having a goal that won’t take sleep away from your eyes. Find mentorsThese are people that have been in the pursuit of excellence and has achieved it. Find a mentor who will guide you on your path to excellence. Mentors are responsible for provision of advice that has worked. They teach based on skills they have already proven to be useful. You don’t know it all, and trying to do everything on your own is usually detrimental. Be humble enough to learn from your mentors. It is always better to learn from others who have experienced and achieved excellence instead of starting the beginning