Chapter 6
- The Control Valve On Performance
- The Better You Do
- The Absolute Prerequisite
- Action Exercise
One of the most powerful ways for you to change your thinking about yourself is for you to commit to excellence. It is to make the decision, right now, to be the best, to join the top 10 percent in your field, no matter how long it takes. The very act of thinking of yourself as potentially excellent at what you do actually changes your mind-set and improves your personality. It makes you happier and raises your self-esteem. You like and respect yourself more, just by deciding to be the best. (90)
The Control Valve On Performance
The core of your personality is your level of self-esteem. Your self-esteem is a measure of how much you value yourself, and how much you think of yourself as an important and worthwhile person. Your self-esteem is the power source of your personality. It determines your levels of energy, enthusiasm, motivation, inspiration, and drive. The more you like and respect yourself, the better you do at everything you attempt. And the better you do, the more you like and respect yourself. Self-esteem and personal excellence reinforce each other. (92)
The Better You Do
Great success requires a continual willingness to move out of your comfort zone, and to break the bonds of learned helplessness that hold most people back. (92)
The better you like you become in your chosen field, the stronger and more confident you will become in every other part of your life as well.
The Absolute Prerequisite
The fact is that it is impossible for you to be truly happy or successful until you know in your heart that you are very, very good at what you do. For this reason alone, you must resolve to overcome any obstacle, pay any price, and go any distance to achieve this level of excellence. You must set a goal to be among the top 10 percent of performers in your field, and then do whatever it takes to get there.
Action Exercise
1. What is it that you love to do? What activity gives you your greatest feeling of importance?
2. If you could be absolutely excellent at any one task or skill, what would it be? Set it as a goal and begin work on that skill immediately.
3. What are the key result areas of your job? On a scale of 1 to 10, how good are you in each area?
4. What one skill, if you developed and utilized it in an excellent fashion, would have the greatest positive impact on your life?
5. What is your area of excellence, your unique selling proposition, and the very best thing you do in your work?
6. If you could do only one thing all day long, what one task or activity would contribute the greatest value to your company and to your work?
7. Identify your heart’s desire, the one thing that you were put on this earth to do. If you could accomplish one great thing in your lifetime, what would it be?