Remember when you were a kid standing on the shore of a pond
or lake and your first reaction was to find a rock? Not just any rock, mind you! The best were the ones that were relatively
flat and very smooth.
Of course, the first thing you did when you found that
perfect rock was to bend over at the waist…get the flat sides of the rock positioned
in your throwing hand…wind-up your arm…and spin the flat side of the rock out
from between your thumb and forefinger out onto the surface of the water.
Bingo! The flat side
of the rock hit the surface of the water perfectly. It seemed to skip across the water almost
forever. Every time it skipped it created
a delightful ripple effect rolling out from the point of impact.
Doesn’t get much better than that when you’re a kid,
right?
My bet is you probably do the same thing as an adult. I know I do!
:<)
Here’s the irony behind that little recall of the glee in
creating repetitive ripples across the surface of water.
You must approach achieving excellence in your life with the
vision of those ripples in your mind’s eye.
Excellence doesn’t happen as the result of a singular
effort. It happens through the
repetitive application of 3 critical factors from which the ripple effect over
time will be the achieving of excellence.
Knowledge is the Tsunami of all Ripples to Excellence
Remember that first wave of the ripples created when your
flat rock hit the water? It was the
biggest one, wasn’t it? From the point
of impact and outward the ripples got smaller and smaller.
Well, knowledge is the way you create that first big ripple
(the tsunami) to achieving excellence. The
power of knowledge is your splash point.
It’s your point of entry into building the ripple effect necessary to
achieving excellence.
One result of growing intellectually…the acquisition of
knowledge…is the overcoming of fear.
Learning enough, through reading, listening, watching and study, about what
you must do to live your life to the fullest will give you the great courage to
do just that.
As human beings we all avoid what we fear. We fear the unknown. Therefore, we avoid the unknown. I don’t know who first expressed those thoughts,
but I do know they are as accurate and relevant today as when first
spoken.
What is stupid about our fear of the unknown is, by
definition, we don’t even know what we fear!
But, the less you know the more you fear. Conversely, the more you know the less you
fear.
The content of books (all kinds of books), CDs, videos, etc.
is nourishment for the human soul. Your acquisition of knowledge is potentially
one of the greatest gifts this life has to offer. Read!
Listen! Watch! Lots!
AND, the ripple effect will be a tsunami of excellence.
Skills are the Zinger behind More Ripples to Excellence
Back to you on the shore of that pond or lake skipping a
rock and creating those beautiful ripples.
As you stand there you have the “knowledge” of what you want to
do. As we’ve learned, knowledge is
critical to achieving excellence.
Here’s the zinger, though—Knowledge applied without
understanding how to apply it is worse than not having the knowledge in
the first place.
The HOW can otherwise be defined as the skills necessary to
your achieving excellence.
The point is you can’t expect to maximize your potential at
achieving excellence in anything, including skipping a rock, without having
honed your skills.
So, when you know what you need to do to achieve the
excellence you desire, your next step is to define all the skills necessary to achieving
that excellence. Then, honing those
skills and there is only one way to do that…practice, practice, practice!
If you don’t believe that, read this article
to reinforce your understanding. It will
further show you why skills are the zinger behind more ripples to excellence.
Effort is the Creator of all Ripples to Excellence
All that said, excellence is never born from inaction! You can know everything and understand all
the necessary skills but if you don’t put forth quality effort you won’t
achieve anything—let alone excellence.
Those ripples you created by skipping that rock across the pond
didn’t happen only because you knew what to do and how to do it. The beauty of that rock skipping perfectly;
ultimately was dependent upon you knowledgeably and skillfully putting forth
the effort.
No effort…no ripples.
No ripples…no excellence.
Think about the idea of putting forth effort in a little
different way to reinforce my point. How
many times have you stood on the shore of that lake (or any other body of water
for that matter) we’ve been recalling and wondered about the mysteries of its
depths?
The only way to find out is to jump in and get fully
immersed in it.
Achieving excellence in life is the same.
You can choose to stand on the shore of life and wonder
about the potential of its mysteries.
Or, you can jump in and become fully immersed in pushing the mysteries
aside and creating the ripple effect of realizing your life’s true potential.
Knowledge, skills, effort are the 3 absolutely critical things to actually achieving excellence.
How are you going to start your ripple
effect toward excellence? Which key
thing are you going to begin working on first?
Please share your thoughts by commenting below.
And…please forward this information to others by following the social
media share link at the top or bottom of this post.
Thank
you.
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