Muster the nerve!
- How to live with a passion for excellence!
It has been said that a passion for excellence carries a price.
Simply put, that means: The adventure of excellence is not for the faint of heart.
Excellence is a personal commitment. (for more on commitment, click here.)
Whether you're looking at a billion-dollar corporation or a three-person accounting department, you see that excellence is achieved by people who muster up the nerve (and the passion) to step out in spite of doubt or fear or job limitations.
They don't hide behind office doors, committees, memos, or layers of staff; they understand that stepping out and stepping forward is the fair bargain they make for extraordinary results.
How can you achieve excellence?
1) Above all you need an invigorating purpose you can call your own, one you care enough about to justify investing your steadfast interest in—one that, we hope, makes you happy, because you will live with it day in and day out.
(For more on the power of a clear goal, click here.)
Whatever your purpose, it has to be worth your full attention. It has to be worth the time and effort it will cost you to master it. Doing better than average not only takes nerve, passion, and purpose, but it also takes tenacious preparation.
The good news? You can start [on the road to excellence] now. The bad news? You'll never finish.
2) This is when you must take courage. Courage and self-respect are the lion's share of passion.
It's hanging in long after others have gotten bored or given up; it's refusing to leave "well enough" alone. It means that anything less than the best really bothers you, maybe even keeps you awake at night. It usually means sticking your neck out.
Daring to give your best shot to something you care about and asking others to do the same is self-exposing. It asks you to choose sides, to wear your passion on your sleeve.
Passion opens you to criticism, disappointment, disillusionment, and failure, any one of which is enough to scare off all but the bravest souls. But the passionate, courageous, self-respecting people we know, when challenges or risks loom before them, regard them as something to be faced.
3) Persist in your purpose. Passion doesn't have to be flashy. Garden-variety, everyday passion is the stuff of excellence.
Being visible takes guts. There you are, a regular person, stepping out from behind your desk [or out of your comfort zone] where it's safe.
All the same, sticking with it day in and day out is plain difficult, and not only because of the waves a passionate endeavor can make. Even a pocket of excellence can fill your life like a wall-to-wall revolution.
We have found that the majority of passionate activists who hammer away at the old boundaries have sacrificed vacations, evenings, weekends and lunch hours, gardening, reading, movies and most other pastimes.
4) Excellence is optimistic. It's believing that something can be done, that it's worth fighting for, worth trusting others to play a part. And there is a benefit.—Optimism is good for your overall physical, emotional and physiological wellbeing.
You have to believe that the stepping out is worth the trouble. It does take courage—the ability to face up to difficulty in spite of doubt, the ability to say good isn't good enough, the ability to learn from the losses, to celebrate the successful tries, to realize that even if you fail the first time, there's reason to try again, that the sting is brief.
When you have a true passion for excellence, and when you act on it, you will stand straighter. You will look people in the eye. You will see things happen. You will see heroes created, watch ideas unfold and take shape. You'll walk with more spring in your step. You'll have something to fight for, to care about, to share with other people. It's not easy. It takes real courage to step out and stake your claim. But the renewed sense of purpose, of knowing you are making a difference, of self-respect, of experiencing positive change, growth, innovation and progress, is well worth the price.
This is the price and reward of excellence.
(Resources: A Passion for Excellence, by Nancy Austin and Thomas J. Peters)