Are you looking to become great and successful, or are you happy if you can have just enough?
Do you want to be the best you can be, or is settling for average good enough?
Are you happy with where you are in life, or do you want more?
Over the past year, it’s been tough – obviously we’ve all had to make changes and reassess our lives with the many changes in the way we do our work, travel, spend time with friends and family, and do things on a daily basis.
With this, I know I’ve lost a little bit of the fire in my belly to keep striving and working each day, however, recently, with Spring just around the corner, I have a new desire and new motivation to get back to the grind.
A few weeks ago, I was reading a book about mindset, and one of the quotes that stuck with me was the following:
People by and large become what they think of themselves.
If you believe in yourself and believe that you can do amazing things, you have a better chance at doing just that.
You can do anything you put your mind to.
However, if you believe that you are average, or you are comfortable with where you are in life and don’t need to make a change, then nothing will change.
Over the past few weeks, since reading this book, I’ve assessing everything I do through this new lens.
By believing I’m more, and expecting more, I can become more.
By demanding excellence in my day to day life, I can become great.
Let’s dive more into how you can demand excellence in your life, and get on to living the life you want and deserve.
Consistent Actions WILL Lead to Great Success Over Time
To achieve success in anything you do, you need to break it down into what actions you are going to take on a daily basis to acheive that goal.
Consistent actions added up over time will lead to success – this is one of the core beliefs that I talk about on this blog and how I live my life.
For example, let’s say you want to become fit and build your strength.
If you do 30 push-ups and 30 squats today, you’ll feel good for a little while, but tomorrrow, you’ll wake up and not see much of a change.
However, if you do 30 push-ups and 30 squats every day for a week, you will start to notice some changes in your body and your strength.
Do this for a few weeks, and even a few months, you’ll have done THOUSANDS of push-ups and squats. You will feel better about your body and you will be stronger.
What would be impossible to do in a day became easy over 6 months or a year.
That is how champions and success is made.
Intentional daily actions each day lead to success over the long term.
You can control your day to day actions and with this in mind, let’s now talk about step two in this process: demanding excellence in everything you do.
Demanding Excellence in Your Day to Day Activities
Have you ever heard of the phrase “practice makes perfect”?
What about the phrase “perfect practice makes perfect”?
Each of these phrases get to the point of how consistent actions (practice) and demanding excellence (perfect practice) can lead to success (perfection).
Demanding excellence is a mindset shift which will help you align your practice with your goals.
It’s not enough to just go through the motions and do just enough to get by – no, you need to do the right steps and adjust your strategy over time to ensure you are on the right path.
What does demanding excellence mean?
Demanding excellence means:
- Setting big goals and having high expectations of yourself
- Developing a daily routine which pushes your limits and expands your abilities
- Researching and problem solving when you get stuck
- Staying disciplined when times get tough
- Going the extra step to get what you want
Let’s dig a little deeper on each of these before wrapping up the article
“A person with great dreams can achieve great things.” – Bob Rotella
Demand Excellence through Setting Big Goals
What are you goals? What are you trying to accomplish? Where do you want to be in life in 1, 3 or 5 years?
Write down your answers and have them with you before we continue.
Now, take your answers and ask yourself, what would the next step above these goals look like?
What I mean, is let’s say you have a goal to get a new job that pays $75,000.
Why stop at $75,000?
What would life look like if you had a job that paid $85,000? What skills would you need to get to this level? Is there anything stopping you from getting this higher paying job?
Becoming successful is done first by setting a huge goal. If you want to shoot for the moon, then you better aim for the moon.
If you aim for less, you’ll hit less. If you expect less, you’ll get less.
Setting big goals and having high expectations for yourself will lead to helping you get on the right path mentally and physically.
Demanding Excellence in Your Daily Routine
Each day, you have an opportunity to take action towards your goals.
Each day, you can either be working towards your goals, or neglecting and moving farther away from your goals.
During each day, I’d recommend trying to do something little to help you stay on track for your goals.
Next, after establishing the routine of doing a little each day, you can start to add on more and more. Then over time, you can continue to make tweaks to make this daily routine more effective and efficient for you.
Then, as you become comfortable, demand excellence in what you do, and strive for perfection.
Demanding Excellence and Expand Your Knowledge
As you start on your journey to success, over time, you’ll come across road bumps and barriers.
The way to navigate these barriers is done through experience, knowledge and problem solving.
To gain this knowledge and experience, you need to be constantly doing, learning and experimenting.
Continual growth can only be done when you are constantly recieving more and more stimulus into your brain.
Reading books, learning a new language, starting a side hustle, or taking courses can all be beneficial for you in expanding your knowledge and capacity to do more.
Demand Excellence and Stay Disciplined
I’m not a runner, but something I’m always impressed by is when I see people running in bad weather.
Training for marathon race in bad weather has to be one of the worst experiences I can imagine. But to get to where they want to be, a runner needs to get out there, rain or shine.
Looking at the weather before the run, it could be so easy to say “I’ll do it tomorrow” or “Maybe another day”.
But to be great and demand excellence is to push through these tough times and stick to your plan.
The people who aren’t willing to grind through these tough times are the ones they will be passing during the race – so it will be worth it.
For you, doing things daily and sticking to those tasks will lead to the results you want. Stay disciplined and you’ll be on the way to excellence and success.
Demand Excellence by Going the Extra Step
Going the extra step is how successful people become successful.
Just showing up, doing the minimum, and doing what is necessary will not get you to the high level you want.
Instead, putting in a more time than is required, doing extra reps, finding efficiencies, and pushing for that little extra bit will get you on a better trajectory.
If you want to become the best in your field, get the body you want, or make more money, then you need to be willing to put in more to get more.
Think of it this way – let’s say everyone around you also wants to get to where you are going.
How can you speed up the time it takes, so that you get there first?
It’s going to be a combination of working smarter AND working harder.
Go the extra step – it’ll be worth it.
Get on the Path to Success Today
Each of these posts on mindset will help you get on the right path to living the life you want and deserve.
Whether you are just starting on the path to success, grinding each day in the middle of the journey, or almost to the end, I hope that you can benefit from the advice above.
In the coming weeks, I know that I will be demanding more and more out of myself, and I’m excited to see the results from my efforts.
It’s not enough to just go through the motions and expect things to change – we need to do a little more each day, and try to break through existing barriers to make breakthroughs.
Whatever your goal is, I know that through having higher expectations for yourself, taking steps daily, and going the extra mile will get you the results you want.
Demand excellence and get on the path to success.
Readers: what goals do you have? What are you trying to achieve this year? What are you doing daily to achieve those goals?