What Is Excellence?

If you have ever wondered what excellence is, there is a detail that you must remember: it is not reaching the peak of success, it is not being more than anyone else or becoming infallible. Moreover, as is often said in the field of personal growth, if you focus on achieving excellence you will never lose motivation, but if you set your sights on achieving perfection you will only get suffering.

We make this little precision for a fact that we see frequently. There are many schools, training courses or areas of competence training that do not hesitate to insist that their objective is to provide students with that impeccable excellence that will distinguish them from the rest. In our society the idea (and the need) to aspire to be the best in any discipline is almost always promoted.

In this way, in this attempt to educate a child to be the new Stephen Hawking or the new Marie Curie, what we will really do is lead them down a hard path of anxiety, disappointment and frustrations. Because whoever aspires to perfection suffers with failure, becomes blocked with error and lashes out at failure.

On the other hand, those who work for excellence make motivation their springboard and self-improvement their hallmark. It is then that one understands that mistakes can be learned and that failure is an opportunity to improve ourselves. Let’s dive a little deeper into this concept.

What is excellence and what should we aspire to if we practice it?

There is a field that is emerging with remarkable interest: we speak of the psychology of excellence. What he aspires, seeks and tries to understand this area of ​​knowledge is to deepen those processes by which people achieve happiness and maximum fulfillment in their work area.

To understand it better, we will give an example. There is a reality that is frequently seen: children with remarkable talents abound who develop that distinctive area during childhood and adolescence and leave in adulthood. Musicians, gymnasts, artists, dancers … Why do people with so much potential, mastery and ample skill end up leaving aside what “made them unique”?

The answer is simple: we often focus on talent without developing excellence. That is, we think that if someone is good in an area they have been blessed. Because either you have talent or you don’t get to anything.

When in reality, to be really good in an area, many more dimensions are needed apart from that natural talent, those that remind us what excellence truly is: a habit, a sense of commitment and improvement, being able to make an effort, to motivate ourselves towards a goal.

Child prodigies rarely grow into successful adults or happy people. This is because certain aspects such as self-esteem, emotional management or tolerance for frustration are not paid attention. Therefore, if there is something that the psychology of excellence aspires to, it is to train ourselves in a series of dimensions that can facilitate that objective: that of making us feel fulfilled and satisfied when reaching our full potential.

They are as follows.

Commitment

Excellence is meaningless if we do not commit to ourselves and to the achievement of a goal. This implies combining perseverance, courage to get out of the comfort zone and the ability to take responsibility for ourselves in this process, while understanding that difficulties may arise. That is, no one will be able to make an effort for us or pave the way for us.

Resilience

We know, the term resilience is the buzzword. However, it also stands out as that competition that allows us to get up again and again after every mistake, every failure.

If you want to know what excellence is, keep this dimension in mind because thanks to it you can recover from any failure or misstep to be ready for new challenges.

Practice, practice and practice

Do, do and do. Anyone who wants to acquire solvency in an area of ​​knowledge and discipline has only one option: to work hard and focus on improving oneself; to no one else. Deep down, nobody comes to this world being the best at something. It’s all a matter of practice and concentration.

Reflection capacity

If we ask ourselves what excellence is, there is a factor that nurtures and drives it: the ability to reflect on one’s own performance. If we are not able to monitor this progress process, we do not achieve anything, nor do we perceive errors or become aware that sometimes, you have to change one strategy for another.

Self confidence

People with talent and a natural disposition towards some area often suffer what is known as imposter syndrome. That is, they conceive themselves as a fraud and stop trusting their abilities. Let’s be clear, without self-confidence there is no capacity for achievement or opportunity to achieve happiness.

This dimension is related in turn to self-esteem, with that fabulous muscle that allows us to be optimistic, resistant by trusting ourselves.

Transcendence and its relationship with what is transcendence

In Martin Seligman’s theory of human strengths, he includes a virtue that, in his opinion, is essential for human beings to build happiness . It is about that key dimension to understand what excellence is: we are talking about transcendence. Now what exactly does this term mean?

It defines the ability to find meaning in what we are and what we do and then look beyond. It is knowing that our development, our opportunity to continue improving never stops, there is always something more to achieve, something capable of motivating us and continuing to feed our illusions and hopes.

To transcend is to go beyond the ordinary to achieve the extraordinary and then feel good about ourselves without the need to compare ourselves with others.

To conclude, whatever our goal in life, our passion or particular desire, let us integrate into that internal sphere the most important ingredient of all: excellence.