It is not the quantity of tasks that you accomplish that will set you apart.

It is not even doing many things right that will stand you before kings.

It is doing the right things with exceptional excellence that makes you remarkable.

It’s easy to get caught in the shiny headlights, thinking that great lives are developed by doing great things. The truth however is that most great lives became great by learning the discipline of doing everyday things well.

Doing mundane better than most will take you a long way.

Not excusing lazy habits will lift you above the general fray.

Never opting for easy if difficult is the path that’s required will make the difference so you can make a difference.

Commit To Complete

One of the key components in excellence is the commitment to complete what you start.

The moments of exhilaration that accompany beginnings and new projects can be intoxicating, but the dopamine soon flushes from the system and you are then left with a decision.

Will you press through the pain of dull everyday discipline to make your dream a reality or will you run for another first-date fix.

Commitment is a BIG word.

Projects and opportunities are prone to invigorate us when we don’t realise quite what it will take to really pull them off. The painful realisation that work will be required, replete with disappointment, discouragement, despondency, dreary days doing the same things over and again, and other less than desirable emotions and activities, derails so many magnificent possibilities.

How many books fail to pass the last page?

How many businesses fail in the first leg?

How many marriages become a heartbreaking statistic?

They started great with an optimistic, “Once upon a time”, but time catches up and the happy ever after never gets written.

The classic fall-asleep-half-way-through-a-film guy

We don’t read stories for the beginning, we read them for the end. I’m a classic fall-asleep-half-way-through-a-film guy, and I can tell you the film is far from satisfying when the questions go unanswered, the guy hasn’t won the girl, and all I know is the challenge-filled middle.

Endings are where the payoff is delivered, and you don’t need to be in Hollywood for that to happen.

Start with dusting your desk. Filing your papers. Dumping your trash. Paying your bills. Making your bed.

Every small every day task you complete will inform your self-confidence and feed into your future wins.

“Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit.” (Ecclesiastes 7:8 KJV)

So said Solomon.

It takes humility to be a finisher. It doesn’t happen by accident, and there’s usually a humbling that happens on the way. Things may not always work out the way that you’d hoped. Sometimes they will turn out better!

The key though is that you finish.

Commit to complete.

That is why it is equally important to choose carefully what you commit to. Doing the right things, not just doing random things right. If you don’t plan your path, someone else will plan it for you.

Don’t run in every direction, trying to see all and be all.

Be your first-rate focussed self and bring your ‘A’ game to the table in the things you are called to do.

Many of these will be mind-numbingly ordinary, but in the mix of mundane everyday excellence, there will also be one or two activities that are filled with a fiery passion that cannot be extinguished. Arenas of activities in which you excel.

Does that mean you will shine in those areas without sweating? Very unlikely. If excellence were only talent we’d have a great deal more talented people making waves in the world. Talent must be tamed and harnessed vigorously, often trained in the trenches, and then set free to flourish.

Lots of folks want the glory of victory without the bootcamp of character.

Don’t be one of those people. Commit to patient continuance in the things you are called to, and let God shape your character as you do so.

It will take work, thought, prayer, and perseverance, because all of those qualities are the ones that build you as a person and ensure that the shoulders of your character are broad and strong enough to carry the success when the final HEA is written across your efforts.