Vrooming with a vengeance! Do. Repeat. Excel. (Source: Geo Davis)
Bear with me for a moment. I’m about to repeat myself. I apologize in advance.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle (Source: Excellence Is a Habit )
With so much new ground to cover, so many new ideas to voice, so many new images to birth, why, WHY am I doubling back? Why am I repeating myself? I really dislike repeating myself. It was a bit of a joke when I was growing up. The summer waiter who used to tell diners, “I already told you the salad dressings.” Politely. Sort of…
Two days ago I revisited the idea of doing, repeating, and excelling. It was a quick one-off via Twitter:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” — Aristotle
Vrooming into #WednesdayWisdom with a vengeance! #CarpeMidlife #EmbraceMidlife pic.twitter.com/VnfSraYWwQ
— virtualDavis (@virtualDavis) August 15, 2018
Clever, right? Wrong. But a tidy, timely reminder. To you. To me.
Sometimes we build a habit by doing and doing some more. And more and more until finally we begin to excel. We begin to realize that a habit of excellence has blossomed in the placeholder maintained so diligently by doing. By trying.
That’s good. In fact, it’s often better than good. Great.
I’ve humble bragged plenty of times in this space about the little-but-hard-earned victories. The habits of excellence. But I’ve also come clean when I’ve fallen short. I’ve owned failures. I’ve jettisoned the no longer important efforts and habits. And I’ve doubled down when the failures impoverish my life, my passion, my capacity to carry out that which is important.
But I haven’t always. Sometimes I convince myself that I haven’t failed. That I’m just taking a brief intermission. That soon enough I’ll be back on track. It’s called denial. And it’s a painful, anxious place to get stuck. You know and I know that there’s only one way to get unstuck. Own it. And then move on.
So it is that I’m outing myself. I’m [almost] ready to admit a failure that’s been weighing me down psychologically and physically. I’m desperate to move forward. But I’m struggling. I’m discouraged. I’m perplexed why I allowed a habit of excellence that was hard-earned and serving me well to founder. Why did I fall off the proverbial wagon?
This morning I sat in the cabin of my sailboat for a few minutes, a short respite before motoring to the Willsboro Bay Marina travel lift to have Errant hauled and stored for the winter. It was an emotionally fraught moment despite my best efforts to shake off the fact that my sailing season was ending prematurely. And as I gathered my thoughts, I picked up a book, opened randomly to a page, and in that moment discovered the most obvious truth. I’ll share it shortly on Sailing Errant. And by then I’ll hopefully have summoned the courage to fully own my failure and to recommit myself. I will be ready — once again — to do, to repeat, and to excel. Wish me luck!
Until then I fall back on Aristotle’s reassuring advice.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” ~ Aristotle