14 Simple, Actionable Ways to Develop the Habit of Excellence

Do you know that excellence is a habit?

Most of the time, we settle for bad habits rather than good ones because they are much easier to start and maintain. Truly, perfection never comes without some effort from your end. To develop the habit of excellence, you need to pay attention to some actionable tips that I’m about to share.

Perhaps you’ve never heard before that excellence is a habit. In the words of Will

Durant, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. “

Anything you repeatedly do automatically becomes a habit. Especially when it’s now part of you, you can do it without thinking. You may struggle at first, but when you keep doing the same thing over and over again, you start mastering it, and even when you are unconscious, you still see yourself doing it.

Excellence is a habit, and reaching the point where it becomes a habit, like your everyday task, shows perfection. It doesn’t happen all in one day. And you sure can’t achieve that feat by trying only once and settling for any result you get.

An excellent habit is one born out of striving to get the very best result in everything you do. You don’t go to bed until the results are perfect. So, how do you cultivate the habit of excellence? Here are 14 things you have to do to develop the habit of excellence:

Don’t Ever Tell Yourself “There Is Time”

Time waits for no one, and any time wasted can never be regained. Now is the best time to position yourself for excellence in every sphere of your life. There is a time for everything under the sun. Don’t say, “I can always do it tomorrow,” because most of the time, you never do it. If you ever did, it wasn’t timely.

The best time to do anything you want to do was yesterday, today is already getting late, tomorrow will be completely impossible

Bishop David A.

Discover Purpose

I don’t believe anyone wants to live a purposeless life, one without direction. The earlier you discover your destination in life, the better. It helps you to curb distractions, and it gives you a sense of focus. The Habit of Excellence cannot be built when you don’t have a sense of direction and purpose in life.

Your everyday actions must be lived in line with your purpose. That’s how to begin the journey of excellence. You must know why you are living, what you are living for, your values, and what you don’t mind dying for.

Improve your Mindset

This is a key point in cultivating the habit of excellence.

At a point in my life, I had the mindset that a particular height in life is not for people like me but for some other people, and therefore, I didn’t see the need to strive for excellence.

For the most part, it made me relax. There’s no need to strive for more. Let me just stick to what I already have. Maybe I was created to be average, and the most surprising part is that almost everything I did came out average. I never crossed a certain limit.

When I learned the habit of excellence, I quickly realized that I could recreate my world to my taste. Negativity bias is a no-no. It will crop into your everyday life if you don’t deal with it. First, discover it, commit to learning and mental schooling, and you’d get around it soon. The same could be your story. Get angry with your status quo now!

Identify, List, and Develop the Required Success Habits

For you to be excellent at anything, you need to identify the habits that are required to achieve excellent results. List your habits. Use them to form your to-dos. Plan your life with them.

Start building those habits into your lifestyle after aligning your mindset toward excellence. The habits will build a system of excellence around you. You don’t want to excel academically if you can’t read for a few hours each day. 

You can’t stay on track in your industry if you can’t upgrade your knowledge daily, through reading and research. Form the right habits that will make you excel in whatever field you are in.

Form the habits of meditation and learn to listen to your heart. Also, learn to stay at peace with everyone around you. Why? Because peace of mind is required if you wish to prudently follow those right promptings from your heart.

Be Disciplined

Don’t sleep when you are supposed to be working. Tell yourself “no sleep till I’m done with this task.”

You can’t cultivate the habit of excellence when you are not disciplined. You must discipline yourself to prudently follow those quiet promptings from your mind/heart. Pay attention to them. Excellence is a habit. It demands that you follow along humbly.

For example, can you count how many times your mind reminded you to take that course because you’ll need that skill in the near future? But you kept shaking it off. Now you are faced with the same opportunities that your heart saw years ago, but without the proper skills to secure them.

When you are able to timely follow the right promptings of your heart, that’s excellence at work. So we can say that discipline is at the core of excellence.

Be Diligent

“Seest thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men” – Proverbs 22:29

This is one of the secrets to developing the habit of excellence. When you are diligent in whatever you do, you tend to open the door to excellence. And if you remain consistent, you will achieve greatness.

Act! Always

Don’t think you will get a heads-up from people when you are not making any reasonable effort with what you are doing. Nobody wants to help or associate with a lazy person who is not ready to act. Do something. The moment you get an impulse to “do,” just start doing. Never permit laziness in your life. 

Excellence doesn’t tolerate laziness. Excellence acts; it doesn’t wait for anyone. Unless, of course, wisdom dictates otherwise. People can only detect excellence in you when you act.

Not when you are idle. Start acting today. Follow that good prompting within you now. Steer clear from every negative bias you have about excellence.

Avoid Being Too Comfortable with your Present State

Excellent men are always in motion. No stagnancy.

Perhaps you have made some progress in your business; that is awesome, but don’t think you have arrived. Because it will blind your eyes and stop you from seeing new and greater opportunities.

Excellent habits begin to form in you when you become a visionary. The moment you begin to look ahead, then you begin to see the need to inculcate in yourself some excellent habits to match your vision. Always remember that excellence aims for perfection. If where you are now is not the perfect spot, then start moving.

Stay Away from The Crowd

If you desire excellence in everything, then you shouldn’t shun the drive for uniqueness. Because excellence is not a “general thing”. You can’t avoid being unique and different from the status quo. Don’t die doing just what everybody else does. Know that there is always something to improve. Always think of new ways to achieve a particular task to get the best results. It gives you an edge over others.

When Daniel, who was called a man with a good heart by the Holy Bible, turned down the king’s food that everyone wanted, he showed this attitude.

He dared to be unique, despite all the criticism.

Beware of Men’s Praise

When you start developing the habit of excellence, don’t get carried away by the praise of men. Which is inevitable, especially when you start getting results. It can throw you off balance if you are not careful enough. Succumbing to praise has a way of keeping you on the spot.

Mind you, if you stop making progress in life, you’ll start going down. Remember, excellence is the goal. Whatever you are doing now can be improved. You can do something better. Never allow compliments to make you lose focus.

The praises of men are like chewing gum; don’t swallow it.

Yongii Cho

Do Not Get Carried Away by Other People’s Success

There are times you watch people you started with already going ahead of you, and you feel a desire to be like them.

Understand that no two people are the same. Some are faster at learning, while others are excellent at business. The fact that you are slow in learning doesn’t mean you can’t outperform a professor or a business mogul if you remain consistent with the right excellence habits. The most important thing is that you are making progress.

“Slow but steady wins the race.”

Be Content

Learn to be content with who you are, who you have become, and whatever you have. As you walk towards greatness, don’t forget to enjoy and celebrate your present state. By so doing, you ease your mind from the pressure of trying to become, to face whatever and whoever you ought to be. Contentment sharpens your focus. And focus eliminates the obstacles to excellence.

Say No to Inferiority Complexes

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Take charge of your life or someone else will. Don’t allow fear to hold you back from striving for excellence in everything you do.

The inferiority complex has a way of keeping you on average. It makes you doubt your abilities. The moment you can’t really trust your abilities, know that excellence is far from you.

Start Now!

The major aim of an inferiority complex is to stop you from taking action. Start doing something now. It’s time to follow your heart. Be courageous and self-disciplined. You can’t develop the habit of excellence by just wishing. Start doing something, no matter how little, and be consistent with it.

You have long limited what you could achieve. It’s time to arise. Forget the past and begin your journey to the top with the right excellent habits.

Know that everything you need to achieve your dreams is already in you. You only need to brush it up, improve it, and put it to action to conquer that destiny.

Arise! Dust off your diaries and review those goals you have set. Revisit your purpose and values in life. Begin working on them by developing the habit of excellence. And in no time, you will see the scent of excellence in everything you do.