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Finding Your Excellence: Becoming Who You Are
Today I want to talk about finding your unique excellence. You are born with potentials that are unique to you. Furthermore, you have an obligation to find out what those are and then to figure out how you can express them. I would like to offer five suggestions that may help you find your excellence and also to take full advantage of life’s opportunities.
First, be engaged. The short answer to being engaged is giving your whole and best self to whatever you are doing. The first step to being engaged is to give your total effort and attention to whatever you are doing. Being engaged will teach you a lot about yourself, your interests, and where you can pursue your excellence. I also encourage you to seek out opportunities for deeper, more meaningful levels of engagement. The ideal form of engagement is a state of total immersion in a task that is challenging yet closely matched to your abilities.
My second suggestion is to increase your self-awareness. In short, you have to know who you are before you act. However, we live in a world of unprecedented distraction. My suggestion to you is to build absence into your lives. Set aside time to remove distractions. Build spaces of quiet into your lives and be patient, and I think you will be surprised by the results.
My third suggestion to you is to be full of awe. Make a conscious effort to find awe and wonder in the small and ordinary things of everyday life. The point is that in today’s world it is tougher and tougher to be awed by ordinary things. Make an extra effort to find awe in the everyday aspects of your life and take a moment to say, "Wow!" In doing so, your senses will be heightened and, in turn, will reveal more about you as well as additional opportunities to apply your uniqueness.
My fourth suggestion to you is to be selfless. It is wrong to think your personal happiness is prior to everything. You should forget yourself and go to work. Throw yourself into whatever you are doing. Selflessness keeps us grounded as we seek personal excellence. We can have the attitudes that will keep us grounded, humble, and open to learning, which provides invaluable perspective in finding our excellence.
My final suggestion is to be compassionate. There are two essential parts to compassion: feeling and doing. Feeling is the capacity to feel what others feel. This is also known as empathy. But true compassion does not stop there. Doing means actually acting on those feelings. Compassion is an indispensable part of personal growth that will reveal much about your distinct set of skills and what types of situations will allow you to better the people and environment around you.
Students, I hope that you will follow my suggestions, learn about whom you really are and prepare yourselves to have an impact on the world. Then go and do. Be excellent and make a difference.