All posts by : Success Bridge

Our quest for excellence will only be a pipe dream until we have a plan of achievement. We all should know that not planning at all is already planning to fail. The importance of having a clear daily plan for achieving excellence repeatedly in academics, arts, co-curricular activities, and careers cannot be underestimated. Here are some of the things you should be doing to achieve excellence.

SET GOALS

If you want to excel consistently, you must be able to set yearly goals that can be broken down into first, second, and third terms. Without a clear knowledge of what you achieved before; you will not be able to set challenging goals. For example, if you were able to complete a 100meters race at an average of 4minutes last year, you can set a goal to achieve completing the same 100meters race at an average of 3mins:30secs the coming year. One way to set your goals for excellence and be able to evaluate it is by using the SMART method; S-Specific, M-Measurable, A-Achievable, R-Relevant, and T-Time bound. Make sure your goals are written in your personal goal setting notebook to help you review the goals you set to see if you are achieving them or not.

 CREATE A PLAN

There is no use setting a goal if you will not act on them. To be able to achieve the goals you have set, you must have a well-planned and written timetable that guides how you make good use of your time daily. My advice is to paste your timetable somewhere you can see it easily every day so you can always be reminded of the need to make quality use of your time. You can’t afford to spend 6hours in a day watching films or playing games and not be able to spend the same amount of time studying to achieve excellence. Daily commitments to your goals will help you achieve excellence.

 TRACK YOUR PROGRESS

In working towards your goal to achieve excellence, you must always keep track of your progress. This can be done by going through your written goals at least once every week to see if you are on track. Things to check for are; “Did I study as much as I should have this past week? Am I on track to finishing a book or acquiring a skill? Whether you are on track or not will help to keep you motivated and show you where you are making progress and where you need to put in more effort.

If you take these simple steps, your journey to excellence would have started. I encourage you to start the journey today.

If you have a challenge setting goal, creating plans, or tracking your progress, feel free to send an email to info@b2sl.org and our team members will assist you.

Wish you good luck!

Excellence is a quality that people appreciate because it is rare to find. Everyone who desires to succeed in life must never forget the popular saying “no good thing comes easy”. Achieving excellence is never easy, but then some people have proved that it is possible to strive for excellence. Talk of Walt Disney, Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, Jack Ma, Usein Bolt, to mention a few. These people did not just rise to the top, they paid the price for excellence.

Below are some of the prices you will need to pay if you want to achieve excellence.

1. Self-Discipline

This is the ability to carry on with what you must do whether you like it or not. It is freedom from weakness, fear, and doubt. For instance, a student who wishes to pass his or her exam must be ready to follow it up with the serious burning of midnight candles. Wishing alone cannot make you excel. Studying hard is the price you must pay to attain excellence. When you discipline yourself, you will not need to be disciplined by other people. This is a character of all successful people.

2. Consistency

Consistency is the ability to follow through with your plans. Train yourself to be consistent in your goals. Your goals, thoughts, speech, and actions should all work in harmony. Be the kind of student that will continually strive to improve. This means that if you plan to read a book in a week, you must do all you can to ensure that you meet that goal. If you plan to complete an assignment before the due date, you must try to make sure that you do so. This will lead you to say no to some things that are not productive.

3. Resilience

Excellence requires strong will, one that never gives up nor surrenders. Someone who clamours for success does not surrender to challenges and failures. They learn from mistakes; in fact, they forget mistakes and remember the lessons learned. Walt Disney’s Cartoon was rejected, his Mickey Mouse, Three Little Pigs, etc. were all rejected but he did not relent. You may desire to be a Medical Doctor but always failing Biology. You should not give up. Push harder by studying more, get a private teacher to put you through, or get other students who you know are doing better at the subject to put you through if you cannot afford a private teacher. You will be surprised at how much better you can do once you learn what you did not know before.

If you are striving for excellence, I encourage you to pay the price and you will not regret it. If you have any issues, you may contact me on alero@b2sl.org, or any other team member at B2SL via email for help.

Wishing you all the best!

We have been talking about excellence and how it entails doing better than yourself in anything, no matter how small. While it is good to strive for excellence, we must know what excellence is not so that we do not misdirect our energies in the first place.

Let’s assume that we have two students (A and B), studying for the same test. In a previous test, both had scored 65%. Student A decides to study hard in other to do better. Student B does not make any attempt to study at all. A day before the test, Student B gets to see the questions so that when the results are out, Student A scores 75% while Student B scores 80%. Can we attribute Student A’s marks to excellence?

1. EXCELLENCE IS NOT JUST WINNING PRIZES

Excellence is not just about winning prizes and getting other people’s praise. If you are truly striving for excellence, you must be improving. Our student B that scored 80% in the test above is not an excellent student because he did not deliberately attempt to know more than he already did. Student A, on the other hand, can be said to be striving for excellence because of the effort to know more which reflected in the better grades achieved.

2. EXCELLENCE IS NOT STAGNATION

Excellence is progressing from one stage to another and not resting on your laurels. Let’s assume you entered a competition and won with 75% a year before. If you enter the same competition and win again with 75% on the same set of questions, you are not striving for excellence because nothing has changed. You may not be able to win a third time if you do nothing to improve your current level of knowledge. You are supposed to be progressing on the journey of excellence which makes you continue to work on yourself.

3. EXCELLENCE IS NOT STRIVING TO BE BETTER THAN OTHERS

It is good to draw inspiration from other people’s success, but just wanting to be better than other people is not excellence. The danger of striving to be better than someone else as a measure for excellence is that you may not reach your potential. Using other people as your benchmark for excellence already limits you. The truth is you may be better than your benchmark without knowing.

We encourage you to strive for excellence and look forward to seeing you excel.

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“You don’t have to beat everybody to be excellent, that is competition. You just need to give your best till there is nothing left to give”

Excellence is performing at your highest level. It means that you’re going beyond what’s expected of what you or others are doing. Excellence is not just doing better than others, but the gradual result of always striving to do better than your best if you can. Your average grade may be 80%, 85%, 90%, or the highest in your class, but being excellent demands that you ask yourself if that is all you can achieve?

To achieve excellence, you must do everything you can to be the best version of yourself daily. The pursuit of excellence cannot be a one-off action; it must be a journey that calls for the investment of time and sustained attention on not only what you’re doing correctly, but also what you are doing incorrectly. You don’t have to beat everybody to be excellent, that is competition. You just need to give your best till there is nothing left to give.

The road to excellence is always under construction. You may be talented at anything, but talent alone does not lead to excellence, you need to also be consistent, hardworking, and diligent. Aristotle and other philosophers postulated that “excellence is not an act: rather, it is a habit that develops into a way of life – the lifestyle – of the individual.” So, anytime your teacher marks your assignment, test, or exam papers and makes comments on how you have improved significantly from your last performance, you mustn’t relent because you have started your journey to excellence.

Everyone can perform excellently in what he/she does. Booker T. Washington said, “Excellence is to do a common thing in an uncommon way.” This means that you can strive for excellence in seemingly little tasks like washing dishes, going on errands, as well as working on your school assignments. When you are pursuing excellence, everything you do will be affected, even if it is sweeping the floor!

Excellence comes with a price, the price of dedication, hard work, and diligence. No wonder Angela Duckworth reminds us that there are no shortcuts to true excellence. Malcolm Gladwell popularized the research that shows it takes an average of 10,000 hours of practice to achieve excellence. Wow! That means doing, doing, and doing again.

So, what are you doing now? How often and how long do you do it? Are you putting in your best? Ask yourself if you are headed to average, good, best, or excellence. If you will not settle for anything less than your best, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish in your life. So why not go for it?

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You can only build dedication by following proven universal success principles just as a house can only be built by following some laid down processes. You can’t become dedicated to your academic or career success by wishful thinking. You must be willing to pay the prize. Here are four principles that will guide you in building dedication.

1. Have a Strong Will

Your success in academics and life is mainly your responsibility. Being successful requires personal strong will. You have a strong will to succeed when you tell yourself in private or public that you must be successful. This provides the energy within you to stay dedicated. The reason many people fail is that they are not truly willing. You can build a strong will when you have a compelling reason to be successful. A compelling reason for success is making your family proud, making your country and the world at large a better place with the skills acquired through dedication.

2. Be Ready for Challenges

Having a strong will to succeed makes the difference between staying dedicated and quitting when faced with challenges. No one has ever done or will ever do anything meaningful without facing roadblocks. To be able to build dedication and stay on the path of success, you must be ready to keep moving forward in the face of challenges. People who complain or give excuses for not being dedicated, end up as failures. A person that is ready to confront challenges before they occur will stay dedicated to success when faced with challenges.

3. Don’t Fear Failure

People who succeed all through history don’t stop at one failure or ten thousand failures. They become dedicated to the point that failure or the fear of failure doesn’t stop them. For example, Thomas Edison who discovered the light bulb we all enjoy today failed 10,000 times before finally succeeding! Failure or the fear of failure should not decrease your level of dedication to success.

4. Be Influenced Positively

Everyone in the world is influenced by someone else. Successful people choose who influences them. You must choose to stay around people who are dedicated to success. You can’t hang around people who are not dedicated to success and expect to be successful someday. Let the stories of successful people and their level of dedication to what they achieved influence you.

Dedication is a virtue that you can build, and you can start building today by connecting with us at B2SL.