Following your own personal goals and values leads to greater success.

For a lot of us (especially those of us in the senior school), the word ‘excellence’ is often associated with the highest possible grade that you can get for an assessment. Excellence, therefore, is sometimes synonymous with ‘smart’ or ‘perfection’.

But this definition is very limiting.

In reality, excellence is whatever you define it to be. Some days, reaching your own personal excellence means that you have made your bed in the morning or went for a walk. Other days, it can mean running the cross country or getting an Achieved score on an assessment that you found challenging. Even standing up for what you believe in or supporting a friend are forms of excellence. Excellence really can change for us in different situations depending on what is happening in our lives socially, mentally and physically.

To reach your own excellence, you first need to consider your personal values and goals. But when we make a goal for ourselves, it needs to be realistic and relevant (learn more about making effective goals here). If we make a goal that perhaps is far too big or not aligned with what we truly want to achieve, then we are more likely to not reach our own definition of excellence.

Here are some questions to ask yourself in order to start thinking about what your version of excellence looks like:

1. What do I value most about my life (friends, family, work, school, hobbies, etc)?

2. What improvements would I like to make in my life, and why do I want those improvements?

3. Do I genuinely want to achieve this or am I feeling pressured to do this?

4. What is going well in my life and how can I keep that going?

5. What support do I have to help me reach my goals?

And of course, remember that your achievements and who you are as a person are very separate things. Sometimes we will struggle to meet even our own version of excellence, but as Millie George, our Wellbeing prefect states:

“Your goals do not have to be getting the same marks some of your peers may receive, they should revolve around what you want to achieve and what you feel you can accomplish. There is so much time left in the year to achieve the academic goals you have set for yourself, and though it can be disappointing, do not knock your intelligence down because of setbacks, you are so much more than that!”