The Path, Part 2 – Your Stand

In my book “Nobody Can Take It Away From You” I talk about personal energy and how we need to cultivate, use and protect it. This is the second part of my three part series on The Path to excellence. Giving time and thought to this tool will help you with your personal energy in many ways.

 

You’ve decided to start and have chosen the path that leads to excellence; it’s an exciting energy moving you forward. After making that decision and feeling excited what’s the next tool you require to keep pursuing excellence? How do you stay on this path, especially when things are difficult? I call that next tool your Stand. You decide what you Stand for.

 

What do you Stand for? This is an important question. Your Stand is the set of core beliefs you live by and follow. It is the line in the sand you won’t step across or be forced over. What you Stand for is a glimpse into your character; it defines you as an individual. And knowing what you Stand for helps you to define what your path of excellence looks like and the reason you’re on it. That is a key part of this entire journey of life. You are the person who needs to define what excellence means to you. Excellence for you may be different than the status quo or the societal norm. There is nothing wrong with that, as long as it is within the legal and moral limits of society.

 

Many people don’t take the time to define their personal ethos let alone truly focus on and live them. If you take the time to ingrain and write out what you Stand for and then you are able to articulate that; this Stand generates and creates a lot of energy in your life. Once you really nail down your Stand it becomes a powerful and guiding force. Your day to day decisions become easier because you are guided by the principles of what you Stand for. This is incredibly beneficial when one is faced with life’s difficult or darker decisions.

 

Having a well-defined Stand is optimal for protecting your energy and saving it for what really matters in your life. When I wrote my New Year’s blog about To Don’ts Lists versus resolutions I included one of my Stand principles.

 

I won’t allow the things that matter the most in my life to be at the expense of those that matter the least.

 

This one simple principle guides me in my time management and where I will direct my energy. I won’t Stand for wasting my time on things that matter the least in my life. I won’t allow other people to dictate what I will or will not spend my energy on. Getting in touch with what you Stand for and then making those things part of your personal everyday way helps you to live from your true nature.

 

With your Stand as a tool you are more capable of leveraging your time, energy and focus. If you have a hard time saying no and then end up doing a lot of things you don’t really want to; understanding your own Stand will give you permission to say no. If you feel something at work is ethically or morally out of alignment with what you stand for then you can voice your opinion and know that you stood for what really matters in your life. What people do with what you have expressed is up to them, but you have taken your Stand.

 

Finally and I think the most important point is this. When you have a well-defined Stand that you walk and talk, it will define your path of excellence. After you choose that you want to pursue excellence as an art, this tool will help you create it in all areas of your life. And I know from experience how much of a dynamic shift this will bring to your walk and talk.

The Path Part 1 - Starting

This is a three part series I'm writing on small steps you can use to get you onto the path of excellence and off of the path of mediocrity. These are the things I have found people who are living their dreams do. The people who are changing the world started here and kept moving along the path. It doesn't have to be a complete upheaval of you life, just some easy perspective shifts to start you rolling.

Broken down life has two path options you can take; the first is mediocrity and the second is excellence. (Now don't confuse excellence with perfection as they are not the same thing.) Choosing to be mediocre is the easy path and it has become the societal norm, the status quo. Everyone gets a participation ribbon or a trophy, don't want to make anyone feel alienated. Its not politically correct to actually tell the truth about someone's performance or lack of it. Being mediocre doesn't take a lot of energy or sacrifice, just enough to get by is alright, and accepted. Excellence takes courage, character, a different ethos than culturally accepted and a whole lot of work.

Back to that path. What's the key to this path anyway? Is it planning? Is it time management? How about focus and the dirtiest word in the English language, discipline? I would say yes to all of them even that dirty word discipline. However, the key ingredient and the most important step to choosing the path of excellence is to start. You start by making a choice to be excellent. Ask yourself the question, am I happy with myself just doing enough? Just enough to get by or to keep my job! Am I happy doing just enough to get through life? Mediocre is doing just enough to get through life, not really living. If you're happy with that, stop reading right now.

Wait! Please read this one thought and then you can stop reading alright. You're not designed to just get through life and be mediocre, your designed to achieve excellence and change the world. You're the missing piece of the puzzle, a key part I might add. Alright, now you can quit reading if you just want to be mediocre.

Starting can be scary and intimidating. Society and people may not like you if you start, it can be off putting to some of them. Don't worry about them, that's their energy to deal with not yours. The simple act of starting is an act of excellence in your life. You can plan the greatest plan ever conceived. You can end up waiting forever for the perfect timing or circumstances to appear. Logic and reason will tell you, they will show you and warn you about the consequences. (That's fear speaking out.) Deciding to start is a choice to use your God given gifts and talents, its  letting them shine in the world. That path is there ahead of you and it is highly unlikely you can see where it ends let alone plan every step you will need to get there, All of that thinking can keep you stuck right there in mediocrity. When I started to write the book "Nobody Can Take It Away From You" I had no clue what I was doing. I just knew I wanted to write the book so I started. Ten years later it was finally published.

Start to move in the direction of your dreams and goals, feel the excitement and that mixture of fear in the pit of your stomach. That is the paradox of starting, feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Be wise not foolish. Don't risk everything at the expense of your family and well being. Make good decisions based on intuition and sprinkled with reasonable logic. You can start with a small step that will grow in time. The key is to start. Not starting because you think that your decisions will go against the societal view of the path is exactly what keeps people in mediocrity.

In Part 2 I will discuss your Stand, or you Back Against the Wall strategy.

"Live remarkable and follow the Spirit in your heart."