Excellence, a working definition……

I’m not going to pretend I have the market cornered on defining excellence, but in the past 8 years I have developed a working definition I use on a daily basis to see if I am operating with excellence in the things that God has called me to do.

At the end of the day, I take a quick 2-3 minutes and get a bit introspective. I ask myself this question.  Did I do what I could/should, when I could, with what I had?  Let’s break that down a bit.

Did I do what I could/should?

We all get sidetracked and distracted from doing what we can/should do.  There are more things demanding our attention than ever before.  Focus is the key to this.  If we are honest with ourselves, the answer is pretty easy to come up with.

When I could?

Timing is everything.  If you have 24 hours is a day, then this applies to you.  This really comes down to knowing how to prioritize the things you get to do.  Another way to look at it is this, “The right thing done late is the wrong thing.”  Procrastinators should have a thoughtful look on their face and be saying, Oh yea……” to this.

With what I had?

I don’t have everything.  But we serve a God that does.  This piece of the question really comes down to being a good steward of what God has given us.  If everything I have is God’s in the first place, then I have every resource to do what he called me to do.

I have found this to be extremely encouraging over the years, keeping me focused on the vision God has for my life.

One final thought, if the answer to the questions we talked about is all too often “no” for you, don’t beat yourself up.  This is a process and no one starts off doing everything with excellence.  The awesome thing about this is if you had a rough day and excellence managed to elude you, don’t worry.  Tomorrow is a brand new day with opportunity to operate in excellence in all you do.

Question for discussion:  How do you define excellence?  Let’s talk about it in the comments section below…