Thinking My Way to Excellence
It began in a less than excellent time. The organization I work for was in chaos. A predator had thrived in our culture and two presidents were out the door for their inability to adequately respond to the crisis. The specific unit I am a part of had experienced two executive departures, as well. All of the above were a direct result of actions — and inaction — that conflicted with my core values. The desire on my part to make sure the world knew that was intense.
Though my emotions were secondary to those personally effected by the circumstances jolting my work community, the anger, frustration, confusion and grief I experienced ate away at me. I spent a lot of time with those emotions. It felt good to rage at the perceived shortcoming of others and to point out the ways I saw myself as a better leader, employee and human being for the choices I had made in my life and believed I would have made in their situations. I spent hours in the shower and car preaching to invisible audiences about my values, my reputation, those of my institution and the sheer nerve of leaders, who had the most control to set a positive course, to sit on their hands and fret about their own interests.
After one particularly impassioned shower sermon, I was in such a lather I proclaimed myself excellent. That was my revenge. I was excellent in the ways that mattered to me and the actions of others weren’t going to drag me down. There was a smugness to my glowing self-review that my 13 year old daughter would appropriately dub cringy.
I began the practice of telling myself every morning that I’m excellent. My head held high, I marched into work and into a variety of situations with the belief I was above it all. Over time, the smugness of that assertion began to change. The morning reminder I am excellent took on a different meaning; a different purpose.
The brain does weird things when you tell it something over an over again. It starts to pay attention. In telling myself I was excellent, which was partly in jest, I opened the door to believing something that had eluded me for most of my life — the belief I am enough. Subconsciously, I’d been telling myself every day, in every moment, that more was required of me. That controlling outcomes was my job and the happiness of others was the measure of my worth. My ego’s decision to change the message, changed me. In excellence, I could see my insecurities as the vocal and caring middle-manager who prided herself on her integrity and strength, yet couldn’t fix the culture and couldn’t heal the broken. The judgment of others I delivered to invisible audiences deflected from my own embarrassment for not meeting the unreasonable expectations I’d placed on myself.
Telling myself I’m excellent did more than help me settle down, it reminded me I had the opportunity to be excellent in difficult situations. At moments when temptation invited me to rage, gossip or judge, I could hear my own voice reminding me, “I am excellent.” That made me want to be excellent. I slowed down in times of conflict, listened with more intention and delayed my reactions and responses until I knew my actions and words were helpful and fair. I was in control of myself and the inner peace contributed to improvements in my mental and physical well being.
This mindset became something I could give to others. In interactions with colleagues reeling from their own challenges, instead of indulging in an exchange of grievances, I was now compelled to tell them in a matter-of-fact fashion that they are excellent. I meant it, too. Because they were, are and will continue to be. And, like me, they are enough.
Some who I’ve had the ‘you are excellent’ conversation with have shared they, too, have passed on the assessment to others. There is a growing number of us at work who are starting our days with a glowing self-review and a reminder of the expectation we have for ourselves to be excellent at every opportunity. We pass each other in the hallway and say the words with a wink. A relatively new colleague found the words on a wooden sign at a craft show and gifted it to me for Christmas. It sits on my desk. Though I no longer need the reminder — my brain goes there naturally each day — I often pull it out for visitors to my office to stare at for a bit and absorb that it’s a message as much for them as it is for me. I love the smiles that follow. They’ve joined the club.
It turns out excellence is contagious. Maybe this middle-manager will end up fixing the culture after all.
