What is Your Excellence Capacity . . . and How Long Does it Take you to Reach Excellence?

Manage Your Time and Projects With Excellence

The title for this article was birthed by working on numerous projects with various support resources who I have watched struggle to reach excellence. After much observation, pointing out a plethora of typos, grammar errors, technical oversights, etc., I realized individuals typically fall into two camps.

Camp #1 Characteristics

•  Strive (extremely hard) to be excellent

•  Take a lot of energy, effort, re-doing, re-checking

•  Your world is typically chaotic, but somehow everything gets done even if you deprive yourself of sleep, exercise, and proper eating habits.

When you fall into Camp #1 you say things like, “I'm trying my best.” “I'll try.” “No one is perfect; I'll do the best I can.” “I did my best, and you did not even appreciate it.” “I was going to and _____________ (fill in the blank with this happened, that happened, another person needed something, an emergency occurred).”

If these characteristics and statements are true for you, here are some tips to help expand your excellence capacity.

1. Focus on small projects one at a time.
2. Manage your time well.
3. Be a hound about not over committing yourself.
4. Improve your processes and systems to allow you to be as efficient as possible.
5. Set boundaries religiously. Why do I strongly suggest this? Because we know one cog in the wheel or out of its place can throw you off or set you back for days, and cause you to make countless errors and numerous redos.

Camp #2 Characteristics

•  Reach excellence almost effortlessly

•  Second nature for you to reach excellence

If Camp #2 characteristics are true for you, you are an excellent organizer, planner, project manager, and manage your time effectively. You always seem to have room in your life for other people and their dreams, projects, and ministry. You never look busy . . . although you look like you are accomplishing a lot to the average person. You say this and feel like, “Oh, I'm so far from where He's calling me to be though.”

You don't even think about churning out high quality, mistake-free work. You don't try . . . you do it. If you can't do it, you won't take it on. You maximize every moment of the day. You rise early and have completed more between 5:00 and 8:00 am than most people complete all day. Your capacity for excellence is large and propels you forward.

You don't have people who are whiners and time wasters hanging around. Everyone around you is self-sufficient in Christ. They are not constantly pulling, tugging, and demanding your time. They are dependent on Him, not you.

Your world is rich, full of life, vibrant, and peaceful. You get the proper amount of rest, exercise, eat well, and have plenty of time to spend with God and others.

If you are like me, having spent time in ministry, you've noticed there is much talk about “the spirit of excellence.” First Corinthians 13 is the epitome of excellence revealing to us that moving in excellence is moving in love. Let's not forget this as we prepare to minister to God and His people via any form of the worshipping arts and scribal anointing (i.e., prophetic dance, writing, poetry, banner making, instruction, maintaining records, preserving history, administration).

If these characteristics and statements are true for you, here are some tips to help expand your excellence capacity.

1. Keep your eyes and ears open for new technology to further assist your efficiency and productivity.
2. Be sure you are maximizing your present software to the fullest potential. If not, take a course to learn about powerful features you may not be using that could help you tremendously. By the way, there are tons of technology courses online. Just search for them.
3. Constantly purge the old. Get rid of things which aren't useful to walking in excellence. This will also aid your already top notch organizational skills.
4. Be a hound about keeping a Holy Spirit led calendar. This way you are sure to continue to have time for Him, others, and the things He wants you to take on.

When you expand your excellence capacity, you begin to experience the joy of living free. So I challenge you this month to expand your excellence capacity so you can live the abundantly free life God's intends.

Gracefully,

Karen M. Pina

GOD's Coach

©2009 All Rights Reserved. This article may be reprinted and copied in full without special permission, provided it is used for non-profit purposes and full attribution, copyright notice, and About The Author information remain intact. Send a courtesy e-mail to kpina@godscoach.com and let us know where the article will appear. For all other purposes, please contact Gifts Ordained by Direction, PO Box 110022, Trumbull , CT 06611 , www.godscoach.com.

BIO

International coach trainer, author, leadership coach, and minister, Karen M. Pina has been creatively writing for over 15 years. Karen's business, personal, and leadership development articles are featured in various online publications, newspapers, and magazines. She is the author of the well received "Leadership FITness - Experiencing Fullness In the Temple"
and "Is it the job, the boss, you. . . or are you an entrepreneur?"

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