This week I’d like to kick off a new series focused on excellence.  We’ll start by thinking about excellence as it relates to high jumping and setting the bar.

Imagine for a moment that I challenged you to a high jump competition.  After getting over your shock that a kind of out of shape stocky dude with a dad bod would throw out such a ludicrous idea, what would be the first thing you’d do?  I’m assuming that you’d ask how high the bar is set.  From there, assuming you accept the challenge, you’d think through how you were going to reach that bar and then train to ensure you could jump over it.  In fact, you’d probably train so you could jump a little higher than where I told you the bar would start, because you know the bar could raise for the next round.

You might be wondering how this connects with work and life.  Life is a lot like a high jump competition.  Whether we are thinking of our role as an employee, a friend, a family member, a spouse, a dad, etc. we are always striving to do better.  Every day is an opportunity for us to improve and reach the next level.  Now, imagine having a high jump competition where you didn’t know how high you needed to jump.  You’d never do that.  You’d want to make sure you knew how high you needed to jump long before you got ready to actually leave the ground.

With all the above said, how often are we pursuing things or doing our jobs without knowing where the high bar is?  Think about this for a moment.  When was the last time you thought about your role at work and said, “In this role, excellence looks like ________,” and then measured yourself against that bar to see how you were doing?  When is the last time you said, “When being a good friend/family member/dad/spouse/human/etc., excellence looks like _________,” and then checked to see if you were rising to the challenge?

I don’t know about you, but I can easily get lost in the day to day and lose sight of what I should be striving for.  I lose sight of what the bar is, and I wait for other people (a boss, friend, spouse) to tell me where the bar is and how I’m doing versus me taking a proactive approach to define excellence and measuring myself and my progress.  The only way we are ever going to do great things is if we aim for greatness, and we can’t do that without taking the time to figure out what excellence looks and feels like.

The challenge: Have you established high bars in the different aspects of your life?

Have a jolly good day,

Andrew Embry