The journey of excellence is a thrilling experience.

I know because I'm on that very journey right now in my life.

But don't be fooled. It's not an easy journey.

Excellence takes real hard work.

There will be ups and downs and some of those downs will be way down.

Here are two aspects about the journey I'd like to address in this particular post.

I think you will need to know if you want to take the journey for yourself:

It starts with clarity.

Alice in Wonderland asked the Cheshire Cat,

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"

"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.

"I don't much care where-" said Alice.

"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.

"-so long as I get SOMEWHERE," Alice added as an explanation.

"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough."

So how clear are you about who you are? What's your identity?

Let me give you a clue: It's not your goals.

Goals are only an expression of who you are.

Get clarity on who you are first. The process and the outcomes will become much clearer as a result.

It's about iteration

You can have 10 years of experience, or you can have 1 year of experience 10 times.

Which would you rather have?

I'll take the 10 years of accumulated experience.

This means you will need to iterate.

Iteration means taking what you learn (from both success and/or failure) and leveraging it for the next cycle. Iteration means building upon itself.

A movie series that builds on itself (like Hell on Wheels) requires that you start from the beginning.

That's because it tells a story. You need the context to know what happens later on.

But a series that doesn't build on itself (like Seinfeld) means you can jump in at any point.

The journey of excellence is one that builds on itself.

It's extremely rewarding to look back and see how far you've come, isn't it?

I'd rather have ups and downs with a trend upward instead of an endless cycle of ups and downs with nothing to show for it over time.

Wouldn't you?