How many of us here want to be excellent at something? I think most people do, and we all can.
I claim that achieving excellence is not so much as having the talent for it or the discipline of working hard to acquire the skills, but rather a matter of doing the right things with appropriate intensity and persistence.
Over the years I have struggled and experimented trying to find ways to help me to get good at something. I have boiled down my findings to a 3-step recipe to help me, and I’d like to share the recipe with you.
Step 1: Choose the Right Thing
How do you find the things you can be excellent at? The answer is simple: you rephrase the question to “what do I love to do?” I mean LOVE, not LIKE.
- A famous physicist, Richard Feynman, said, “Physics is like sex. It may sometimes create some useful products, but that’s not why we do it.” He did physics, not because he wanted glory, not because he wanted to create some useful things, he did it because he loved it. He won a Nobel Prize doing what he loved.
- Warren Buffet, when asked how he got so rich, answered: I love investment work, I got good at it, and it just so happened that I made a lot of money. I did not plan to get rich. I just do what I love to do.
- Tom Clancy quit his job, as an insurance salesman, to pursue full time what he loved that is writing high tech. spy novels. We all know how successful he has become.
Three hugely successful people, in three entirely different fields, share one secrete: they all chose to do what they loved. Although they do their things repeatedly they did not get burned out. We the regular people are the same. We will not be burned out when we do what we love to do. We don’t need discipline to do what needs done; we will be eagerly waiting to get up from bed and plunge into it, again and again, day in and day out, and still ask for more, because we love doing it.
Step 2: Make it Simple and Keep it Intense
We may love to become excellent at many things. But, none of us have unlimited resources or energy. It is important to make it simple--choose one target at a time!
Once you identified your target, you got to put enough intensity to it.
A book called The Arts of War was written some 3000 years ago in China and is still quite popular in today’s business world. The book describes how to win a battle. It says:
Swift as wind, resourceful as forests, invade like fire, unmovable as mountains.
The real world is a lot like a battle field. When you encounter an issue, you want to swiftly take the necessary actions; you want to find as much help from as many sources as possible; you want to apply as much heat to the issue as you possibly can; you cannot be deterred by obstacles.
You see the intense single-minded pursuit demonstrated in Olympic athletes and numerous successful business people--none of them do things half heartedly.
Some golfer said, “Golf is like a love affair—if you don’t take it seriously, you won’t have fun." If you don't take your pursuit seriously, you are not going to have fun; when you don't have fun, you'll burn out; when you burn out, you will not achieve your goal.
The same golfer also said, " If you take it too seriously, it’ll break your heart.” Can you take it too seriously and end up broken hearted? Yes, it could happen. But I have a remedy for that—that is…
Step 3: Give Yourself a Pat on the Back
The more challenging the goal is, the more joy you’ll get when the goal is achieved; on the other hand, it is also more likely that you may stumble. However, if you choose to do what you love to do and do it persistently with enough intensity, I see no way that you won’t improve. The progress may not be as fast as you’d like, but it’s there. It is important that you recognize the progress you have made and give yourself a pat on the back once in a while. Then, you come back for more.
In Conclusion:
I guarantee that you can become excellent at anything, if you would
- Choose what you love as the goal.
- Focus on one goal at a time and do it with intensity.
- Give yourself a proper pat on the back when appropriate.
But, that’s not all. You can become excellent not only at anything, but also at everything you choose. The one rule to bind them and rule them all is to make the pursuit of excellence a habit.
The great Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but rather a habit.”
After you became excellent in one thing; you pick another target and do it again, and again, until it becomes a habit. Then you can be excellent not only at anything, but also at everything you do.
Mr. Toastmaster.
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