Life Principles for Personal Excellence
Present times glorify hustle culture to the point that we have a tendency to think about our careers more than any other part of our lives. Whether you work from home or on-site/at an office, your job takes up 40+ hours of your week. Additionally, there is a ton of content in the online space that focuses on careers. Whether it discusses tactics for getting a job or how to do your best work on the job, what often gets missed is recommendations for personal life. Our professional and personal lives are intertwined and go hand-in-hand with one another. If we commit ourselves to personal excellence, it will show through in our professional lives and vice versa. Here are 10 principles to live by for personal excellence.
1. Develop Beneficial Habits
Habits are what will shape your life. It’s the things that you do consistently that will give you the results you’re looking for. Begin by deciding what you want in all areas of your life: money, relationships, health & fitness, etc. Then come up with habits that will get you closer to them. Habits can be hard to establish, but once you get through the initial forming of them, they will become a part of you. Choose wisely and you will notice them changing your life for the better.
2. Seek Knowledge, Not Just Results
Don’t get me wrong, we should always be striving to meet our goals. But we don’t want to get so focused on our results that we forget to do things for the experience, the pleasure, the experimentation, the exploration. Life is just as much about the memories and experiences as it is about making things happen for ourselves. Don’t burn out or miss all of the fun by always having an end in mind. You’re allowed to do things just because.
3. Learn Something New Every Day
Doing so will improve your life in more ways than one. The more knowledge you have, the better equipped you are to handle what life throws at you. You will also naturally start to have more confidence in yourself. It can also spark your interest in what will become a lifelong hobby or new career path. You will catch yourself starting to think outside the box and randomly being able to use the information you’ve learned as situations come up.
4. Lack of Planning Results in Less Than Achievement
No one is saying that you have to obsessively plan, but you will save a lot of time if you start your days with a plan instead of trying to wing everything. You also need to know what you’re working towards so you can break it down into small steps to create it. Planning will look different for everyone, do it in a way that works for you. The most important thing is just to have a plan and stick to it as often and as best as you can.
5. Distraction is the Enemy of Productivity
There are so many things in life that require your attention. Be sure that the majority of your time is being spent focused on building the life you want. Also, make it a point to eliminate things that are taking from you. Chores, long commutes, lack of planning, time-wasting habits, etc. This doesn’t mean that you can’t ever mindlessly scroll through social media, but do it intentionally instead of letting two hours go by and then wondering why you have no time left in your day for the important things.
6. Ability is Mostly about How You Spend Your Time
It’s easy to fall into the comparison trap and believe that someone else is talented at the thing you want or want to do. While ability can definitely give you the upper hand in some cases, working on your craft regularly is what will set you apart. Natural talent is only a part of it, don’t discourage yourself from trying and working at something just because you didn’t start out as skilled as someone else.
7.It’s Never Too Late to Be Great
Too many people choose not to act on something that they want because they fear that they started or are starting too late. If you choose to start now, you will surprise yourself with how far you’ve come in a year; especially if you’re consistent. If it’s something that you’ve been considering for a while now, it will keep coming up until you act on it. Start now, today it’s not too late, but someday it will be.
8. Do One thing that Scares You a Day
Taking small steps daily will help you diminish your fears and give you the courage to purse the bigger things that scare you. Doing one thing that scares you a day will help you grow as a person and see that we are much more capable than we ever imagined ourselves to be.
9. Take Your Sleep, Nutrition, and Exercise Seriously
You have two places to live, the earth and your body. When we’re younger, we like to believe that we’re invincible and can eat whatever we want, go without exercise, and run on just a few hours of sleep per night. As you get older this becomes less and less of the case and will start to affect your work performance and quality of life. You don’t have to treat life like a fitness competition, but you definitely want to make sure you’re taking care of yourself.
10. Do What YOU Want
In this lifetime, there are so many (and will continue to be) expectations put on us by society, family, and everyone in between. Especially if you decide to do something unconventional or even just outside of your usual, people are going to say something. You get one life to live, do it your way. If you choose to listen to everyone else instead of yourself, you will be missing out and constantly wondering what it would have been like if you had just done what you wanted. You’re the only one that has to live with yourself, no other explanation needed.
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