If you are like me, perhaps you have run the “engine” of your life on ambition for quite awhile. Wanting and then laboring to be better, to achieve at the highest level of which I am capable has been part of my story for as long as I can remember.
And yet, I have begun to make a change in the past few years - a change to a “cleaner burning fuel.” While ambition may be powerful, it also has a cost. Overwork, excessive stress, how you treat others, all of these are a few of the ill effects of ambition run amok.
Instead, what I have found and am learning to apply in my own life is the pursuit of excellence. Ambition is about the big thing - the conquering of worlds. While this sort of ‘grand gesture’ thinking has a degree of romance - rarely does it work in reality. Little of life is grand, most is quite ordinary. It is how we show up in the ordinary that matters.
What I’ve discovered instead is that it isn’t the big dream, but rather the persistent, repetition of the small that is most important. Or as Aristotle stated,
We are what we repeatedly do, therefore, excellence is not an act, but a habit
Excellence is about how we show up each day. It is about the single step forward, once at a time. While it may sound high-minded or unattainable, it isn’t.
Our word excellence aligns with what the ancients called arete or virtue or flourishing. Things flourish when they are inline with their purpose. A garden flourishes when the plants match the climate, receive the right sun exposure and the right level of moisture. When those variables are correct, you cannot help but see growth and vitality.
Similarly, pursuing excellence in life sees all of life’s dimensions, but with the right levels of boundedness in each. It does not entail the avoidance of effort, far from it, instead, it is purposeful effort, directed in seeing the how well something can be done.
Next week, we will unpack the virtuous circle at the heart of the pursuit of excellence.