Be the best you can be today. Be a better step today than yesterday. Put others above yourself. Measure personal excellence by your standards and no one else’s. Do something difficult that you prefer not to do. Fix something (a relationship?) That you broke up or is damaged. Stop procrastinating for today.

When your day is done before you reach the end of your list, make a new list for tomorrow and say thank you for today. Be grateful for all that you accomplished. If it was less than you wanted or less than you could have done, resolve to do better. Write it on your list as a personal reminder.

Allow for missteps. Excellence does not require perfection. It requires persistence, progression, and a burning desire to be and do better.

The best you can do today qualifies as excellence, for today. Acknowledge and accept it. Tomorrow is a new day, and while we don’t start over, we work toward excellence every day. Excellence is an hourly daily achievement, not an end point.

Build, grow and improve tomorrow instead of today. By the end of tomorrow, having passed today and done your best, you will have achieved excellence again.

Set goals for your life. Important goals that take years to achieve and short-term goals that take a day, a week, or a month to complete. Write them down on paper, give each one a priority and a date. Part of being great today is having goals for tomorrow. Writing them down will increase your achievement level by a factor of ten (10x).

Perfection is your end game. It is not today’s goal. Take it out of your measure of excellence.

Excellence is a weekly, daily and hourly achievement. It is the path we follow in pursuit of perfection. Allow failure. In fact, excellence requires that we go through failure, not around it. Mistakes are part of the learning process. Acknowledge them. Repair your damage, eliminate the behavior that explains the failure, move on.

Perfection will measure the whole of your life in the end. Until then, excellence is your measure today. Was today an improvement over yesterday, last week, last month? Did you get up and move on after your last mistake? Do you follow the path uphill? If yes, then you are still on the path of excellence.

Attitude drives excellence while achievement is its measure. Getting up after failure is an achievement. Counting that as an achievement is attitude. Of the two, attitude is the most important. It is a better measure of the person.

Excellence demands a certain level of happiness. Excellence and happiness increase in concert. Attitude is the determining key to happiness. It is the catalyst for the excellence-happiness concert.

We tend to judge our level of excellence primarily based on our achievements, and they are certainly a key measure. Nevertheless,

1. improvement compared to yesterday,

2. rise above failure,

3. and happiness,

… are individually and collectively the truest measure of excellence.

Excellence is not illusory or relegated to the rich and powerful. Quite the opposite in both points.

Take this simple test. Regardless of where you are today, tomorrow you can achieve a higher level of excellence.

Autotest:

1. Did you accomplish something significant today?

Yes = 3; maybe = 1; no = 0

2. What are you grateful for today?

Much = 3; A little = 1; Nothing = 0

3. Did you do something better today than yesterday?

Yes = 3; maybe = 1; no = 0

4. Do you have written goals?

Yes = 3; I can’t find them = 1; no = 0

5. Are you happy?

Yes = 3; maybe = 1; no = 0

6. What is your attitude towards life?

Positive = 3; Not totally negative = 1; Negative = 0

If your score is:

0-5 He was probably not fair to himself. Redo the test.

6-9 Your flame of excellence is burning. Give him some fuel.

10-18 Excellence is alive and well. Keep going, share with others, write new goals.

The test is simple but sufficient for our instruction. Re-take it often or make up your own and take it often. Set goals, do what you can to achieve them, accept your successes, write them down, repeat the process. It has often been said that measured and reported performance produces the best results. This is especially true when managing yourself.

Excellence is your personal force for good. Embody the good in you. It encourages growth, demands a positive attitude, and demands gratitude. It is not perfection nor does it require perfect behavior.

Excellence is the measure of the common man. We are all better at it than we think.