Most of us say "we seek excellence." What does that mean? What does that require?
AreteHoops shares an article about the pursuit of excellence.
Comment:
Excellence describes your process not necessarily your results. Regarding my 'trading' process, I have this taped on the top of my laptop.
It only has meaning if and when I adhere to the process of preparation, discipline, and risk management.
Establishing positive habits takes time. Charles Duhigg writes about the 'habit cycle' of cue-action-reward in The Power of Habit. It takes about three weeks to build a habit but even longer to reinforce it.
Darren Hardy wrote an excellent book, The Compound Effect describing the value of making steady, incremental change, but also of decreasing waste. Do you need to buy that coffee each day? Can you reduce time wastage of watching television or surfing the Net? Can you substitute investing in yourself (reading, writing, study) instead?
We all have both positive and negative habits. Part of that results from the way our brains function. Daniel Kahneman discussed the c-system (reflective) and the x-system (reflexive) that we use in Thinking: Fast and Slow. Automatic function works wonderfully as a timesaving device, but can be detrimental when situations demand critical decision-making. Shifting from one system to another requires work and is fatiguable.
If we want to make meaningful change, then we have to contemplate, refine, and remodel our day-to-day processes and thinking. Each of us must weigh the need and value to do so.