Many self-help popular books and counsellors advocate that excellence is about getting big macro choices right, such as choice of right discipline after 10th, or the right college to graduate, or right job after graduation, or even the right partner to marry. Because of this mistaken belief, students and their parents spend considerable time in deciding what to do after 10th class ! But excellence is not about doing one thing right; it is about doing things right daily ( at least most of them).
In other words, Excellence is a habit. It is not a mindset, or a one-time skill. Taking one decision right does not guarantee excellence. Taking the decision to do 'engineering', for instance, does not guarantee any excellence in engineering, until you do numerous small things right while finishing your high school till 10th class. For instance, if you have decided that your potential strength is physics, one of a critical subject in Engineering, you have to find methods and ideas that will daily help you increase your strength in physics. Your strength is not going to increase by understanding one chapter right, or passing one exam of physics with good marks. Your strength in physics will increase only if you make most of your micro choices - of doing well in physics - right.To excel in life, one has to practice the habit of excellence consistently with conscious effort.
Because excelling is a habit, you have to practice it again and again consciously. Like driving habit, excelling habit has three characteristics. Firstly, even though you have learnt driving, you still have to drive the car every time with focus and attention. You cannot just put down your guard and hope the car will be driven automatically. Once you learn driving till a threshold level, you may require less conscious effort, but you still require some effort. Similarly, excelling habit, even if you learnt it once, has to be practiced again and again in every situation. Secondly, when the situation changes, you have to re-learn the habit again. For instance, if you have to drive in Ghats, you have to learn driving again. Thirdly, a contextual situation may require a very different kind of similar skill. In such situation relearning the same habit takes lot of practice and time. For instance, if you want to enter the competition of car-racing, you may have to unlearn some of the practices useful in city driving, and practice new way of driving. Excelling habits, even when they look similar, require quite an amount of relearning for each situation.
So how can you develop this excelling habit to achieve anything meaningful?
1. Excelling is making micro choices daily (again and again) to gain knowledge
Many students assume that excelling is about making one right choice - Engineering, medical, arts, or any other discipline - after 10th class. Unfortunately, it is just the first step. If you do not do the micro-work, nothing will save you.
When you, for instance, choose to use Physics Olympiad to deepen your knowledge of engineering, you have to make numerous micro choices consequently : how to study every day for olympiad despite the school schedule, where to find other students who are also working for physics olympiad, how to locate teachers who will teach you the depth of physics, how to find websites that will help you learn some concept of physics faster, and where to meet older students who had gone to Olympiad and so on. These micro choices ultimately determine if your macro decision of doing engineering will help you excel or not.
2. Excelling is using the 'forced situations' in your life to grow mentally
We do not have choices in many situations. We are, on the contrary, forced into situations. Forced situations push us back into the corner and make us take a stand that primarily determine our mental growth. Remember the definition of mental growth: Mental growth is our ability to see as-is reality without any bias. For instance, we are born into a particular type of family, a specific kind of town or city, and in a specific culture or community. All these forced 'situations' bias us unknowingly. Our ability to be aware of these biases and utilise them in our life ( either as crisis or as opportunities) determine our mental growth.With mental growth, we develop qualities like patience, concentration, persistence and courage which are necessary to complement your intelligence.
3. Excelling is about using every situation to tame the mind beast so that you can take the above two actions with commitment
Mind has features which are good and ugly. Despite knowing 0.001% of the world ( or even less), it still has to function in this world and help us find our place to grow. This is the power of our mind. But to use this power, Mind is forced to adopt certain practices. For instance, it has to use 'fast and instantaneous'** emotion to take quick decisions without enough information. But one cannot always rely on these 'emotions'. For instance, when we are going to stage to deliver a speech, we have to learn to ignore the discomforting signals of emotion. In short, we have to learn to tame the mind beast : sometimes consciously go against its orders and sometimes follow its powerful orders.
When we use stress, that mind generates to keep us wary of danger signals, to channelise our efforts in studying more, we are taming the mind beast. When we use self-doubt to prepare for the next exam, despite doing well in the current exam, we are taming the mind beast. When we ignore the belief ( mind unconsciously adopts beliefs to help it take decisions with less information) that 'drawing is just a hobby', and decide to pursue career in drawing, we are taming the mind beast. Some self-help gurus advocate the opposite: instead of taming mind beast they tell us to believe that our mind can do anything and everything. But mind, because it is always functioning with very little knowledge about the world, cannot be all-powerful! This strategy therefore fails.
Summary
In short excelling, first of all, is a habit. Excellence is not a mantra or rule that can be practiced once in a while. Excelling is habit that has to be practiced daily. You will not learn to excel always. Sometimes you may not succeed in excelling. Excelling is about using daily situations in life to guide your actions and behaviour that slowly and surely enhances your knowledge( strengths) step by step, help you grow mentally by tackling forced situations differently, and above all use every situation to become aware of the mind's beast so that you can tame it . Taming the mind beast is necessary if one has to use the power of mind without falling prey to the mind's unpredictable demons of emotion, stress, belief and self doubt. We may not get right all these choices and decisions. But overall, our averages will improve and help us lay the solid foundation of any excellence.
Do you practice the habit of excellence consistently?
** To know more about mind's fast and instantaneous process, read Noble Prize Winner Daniel Kahnemann's book ' Thinking slow and fast'.
In other words, Excellence is a habit. It is not a mindset, or a one-time skill. Taking one decision right does not guarantee excellence. Taking the decision to do 'engineering', for instance, does not guarantee any excellence in engineering, until you do numerous small things right while finishing your high school till 10th class. For instance, if you have decided that your potential strength is physics, one of a critical subject in Engineering, you have to find methods and ideas that will daily help you increase your strength in physics. Your strength is not going to increase by understanding one chapter right, or passing one exam of physics with good marks. Your strength in physics will increase only if you make most of your micro choices - of doing well in physics - right.To excel in life, one has to practice the habit of excellence consistently with conscious effort.
Because excelling is a habit, you have to practice it again and again consciously. Like driving habit, excelling habit has three characteristics. Firstly, even though you have learnt driving, you still have to drive the car every time with focus and attention. You cannot just put down your guard and hope the car will be driven automatically. Once you learn driving till a threshold level, you may require less conscious effort, but you still require some effort. Similarly, excelling habit, even if you learnt it once, has to be practiced again and again in every situation. Secondly, when the situation changes, you have to re-learn the habit again. For instance, if you have to drive in Ghats, you have to learn driving again. Thirdly, a contextual situation may require a very different kind of similar skill. In such situation relearning the same habit takes lot of practice and time. For instance, if you want to enter the competition of car-racing, you may have to unlearn some of the practices useful in city driving, and practice new way of driving. Excelling habits, even when they look similar, require quite an amount of relearning for each situation.
So how can you develop this excelling habit to achieve anything meaningful?
1. Excelling is making micro choices daily (again and again) to gain knowledge
Many students assume that excelling is about making one right choice - Engineering, medical, arts, or any other discipline - after 10th class. Unfortunately, it is just the first step. If you do not do the micro-work, nothing will save you.
When you, for instance, choose to use Physics Olympiad to deepen your knowledge of engineering, you have to make numerous micro choices consequently : how to study every day for olympiad despite the school schedule, where to find other students who are also working for physics olympiad, how to locate teachers who will teach you the depth of physics, how to find websites that will help you learn some concept of physics faster, and where to meet older students who had gone to Olympiad and so on. These micro choices ultimately determine if your macro decision of doing engineering will help you excel or not.
2. Excelling is using the 'forced situations' in your life to grow mentally
We do not have choices in many situations. We are, on the contrary, forced into situations. Forced situations push us back into the corner and make us take a stand that primarily determine our mental growth. Remember the definition of mental growth: Mental growth is our ability to see as-is reality without any bias. For instance, we are born into a particular type of family, a specific kind of town or city, and in a specific culture or community. All these forced 'situations' bias us unknowingly. Our ability to be aware of these biases and utilise them in our life ( either as crisis or as opportunities) determine our mental growth.With mental growth, we develop qualities like patience, concentration, persistence and courage which are necessary to complement your intelligence.
3. Excelling is about using every situation to tame the mind beast so that you can take the above two actions with commitment
Mind has features which are good and ugly. Despite knowing 0.001% of the world ( or even less), it still has to function in this world and help us find our place to grow. This is the power of our mind. But to use this power, Mind is forced to adopt certain practices. For instance, it has to use 'fast and instantaneous'** emotion to take quick decisions without enough information. But one cannot always rely on these 'emotions'. For instance, when we are going to stage to deliver a speech, we have to learn to ignore the discomforting signals of emotion. In short, we have to learn to tame the mind beast : sometimes consciously go against its orders and sometimes follow its powerful orders.
When we use stress, that mind generates to keep us wary of danger signals, to channelise our efforts in studying more, we are taming the mind beast. When we use self-doubt to prepare for the next exam, despite doing well in the current exam, we are taming the mind beast. When we ignore the belief ( mind unconsciously adopts beliefs to help it take decisions with less information) that 'drawing is just a hobby', and decide to pursue career in drawing, we are taming the mind beast. Some self-help gurus advocate the opposite: instead of taming mind beast they tell us to believe that our mind can do anything and everything. But mind, because it is always functioning with very little knowledge about the world, cannot be all-powerful! This strategy therefore fails.
Summary
In short excelling, first of all, is a habit. Excellence is not a mantra or rule that can be practiced once in a while. Excelling is habit that has to be practiced daily. You will not learn to excel always. Sometimes you may not succeed in excelling. Excelling is about using daily situations in life to guide your actions and behaviour that slowly and surely enhances your knowledge( strengths) step by step, help you grow mentally by tackling forced situations differently, and above all use every situation to become aware of the mind's beast so that you can tame it . Taming the mind beast is necessary if one has to use the power of mind without falling prey to the mind's unpredictable demons of emotion, stress, belief and self doubt. We may not get right all these choices and decisions. But overall, our averages will improve and help us lay the solid foundation of any excellence.
Do you practice the habit of excellence consistently?
** To know more about mind's fast and instantaneous process, read Noble Prize Winner Daniel Kahnemann's book ' Thinking slow and fast'.
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