Custom «Maintaining Individual Excellence» Essay Paper Sample

Being excellent makes one exceptional in what he or she does. This in turn enhances one’s ability to make meaningful contributions to any team, company, or organization. Accomplishing and maintaining individual excellence is a result of various activities. There are no specific standards set to measure excellence.

Excellence varies from one person to the next. What one considers as excellent may not necessarily mean the same to another person. Personal excellence is the ability to stay committed to daily improvement (Akonawe, 2008). Excellence is not achieved overnight. Rather, a systematic process at times takes years to develop. The product of excellence is becoming a better person than you were before.

To achieve and maintain excellence, one must develop goals that he/she has planned to achieve. The set goals act as the drive and give one a special sense of purpose. The desired goals must be feasible and manageable. As individuals, we know our strengths and weaknesses. We must therefore set goals that reflect more on our strengths than our weaknesses.

The next critical step after setting goals is to develop them (Kris van den Branden, 2010). By developing goals, we do things that further the goals and dreams we desire. For example, if we aim at attaining financial stability, I may look for a job or open a savings account where I can deposit my savings. The development must be continuous and its progress should never stop at any point.

Currently, I am still in college where I am pursuing a course that will enable me take on a career of my choice later in life. I am a member of several clubs in the college that will help me sharpen my skills. I have a chance of interacting with people from different backgrounds. By exchanging ideas with people from diverse places enriches my knowledge on different issues (Ender, 2010).

 For further development, I do internships with humanitarian organizations where I put in practice my educational skills. In addition, I also read educative books and journals to enrich my knowledge capacity. Since I am not financially stable, my financial management skills are limited. However, I have a plan of saving at least 10 percent of my money every month. To help me achieve this, I have opened a student’s savings account at the local bank.

Force Field Analysis

Force Field Analysis is a based on the premise that struggle between forces of resistance and driving forces leads to change (Judith A. Lewis, 2001). The analysis lets one determine the best course of action to take. Better results are obtained when one brainstorms with his or her colleagues. By doing so, one generates many ideas as possible in a short time period.

Table1: Force field analysis

I have several driving forces that push me to become a better person. The most critical driver is the desire to be seen as a positive role model to young people. I want to be a figure whose responsible choices, appropriate norms and behaviors can be emulated by the young generation. This would result to enormous positive effect in the communities that we live in.

Another driver is the need to be further my education and career. I have a desire to achieve the highest levels of education that the system can offer. By doing so, I will be empowering not only myself but also the lives of those people around me. The other critical driver is the desire to achieve financial stability. Having enough money to cater for my basic needs is not enough. Financial stability will enable me live a comfortable life and still have money to help those in need. The greatest satisfaction does not come from making oneself happy, but through helping those in need and making them happy.

However, there are restrictive forces that come with every desire or driver (Judith A. Lewis, 2001). These things hold us back from achieving what we want. Restrictive forces range is to be personal or from the immediate environment. Personal forces include, but not limited to negative thoughts, habits and life experiences.

In my case, lack of time is my greatest restrictive force. In as much as I would want to help in community projects, counsel teenagers and further my education, I have insufficient time. Many responsibilities that I have take most of the time leaving me with little or no time at all to attend to my other callings. Insufficient resources, especially financial resources also pose a great hindrance. As a student, I do not have enough money to fend for myself, leave alone for others. This restriction has made it difficult for me to help people who need my assistance.  

Peter Senge’s Five Disciplines

The five disciplines that Peter Senge identifies are said to be converging to innovative learning organizations. The disciplines are systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building a shared vision, and team building (Senge, 2010).

The systems thinking viewpoint is oriented toward the long-term view, while most of the time when faced with difficulties we tend to look for short-term solutions. We overlook the fact that these short-term solutions may eventually lead to significant long-term costs. Personally, I tend to overlook the small matters that seem inconsequential only to back to haunt me in future.

Personal mastery involves going beyond our competences and skills. It continually clarifies, deepens our personal vision, and sees reality objectively. It is a life-long process. This discipline has helped me to develop my personal vision and identify the gap between my vision and reality. I have been able to know what I am capable of and what I am not.

 Mental modes are the ingrained assumptions that affect how we relate with the world and how we act in when faced with problems. Most of the time I do not know the impact of the assumptions that I have on different matters. The mental mode enables me develop the ability to reflect on those issues. I have learnt to unearth my internal pictures of the world and scrutinize all their aspects.

Building a shared vision is the next discipline. A shared vision has the power to uplift people’s aspirations, encourage experimentation and innovation. It fosters long-term orientation and imperative for learning. A vision must be compelling for it to be shared. This has increased my commitment and enthusiasm towards achieving my set goals. This has continued to increase my chances of realizing my vision and goals.

Team learning encourages people to work together as a team. People learn faster when they work as a team (Senge, 2010). Every team member has a contribution to make. As a result, growth occurs more rapidly in a team than when acting single handedly. I have learnt that for good results, I must work hand-in-hand with other people. We must understand our specialty and form effective combinations, which will propel our individual excellence. By doing this, I have discovered insights that I could not attained if I was alone.