Over the past 30 years there have been literally thousands of studies into the acquisition of excellence. There have been uncounted numbers of interviews with top CEO’s, top athletes, and other high achievers in many fields. Researchers and authors have been working hard to unlock the secrets of success.

In his book, the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey outlines the common strategies successful people have followed to achieve their success. He suggests that anyone can follow these same basic rules to become successful. There have been over 25 million copies of Steven Covey’s book sold.

Daniel Coyle (The Talent Code) and Malcolm Gladwell  (Outliers)draw on their own research as well as the research of prominent psychologists Anders Ericsson, Carol Dweck, and others, to shed light on how excellence is acquired. Again their message has been that greatness is within the reach of all of us. Many more millions of these books have been sold.

If book sales are anything to go by, then literally millions of people are aware of how excellence is achieved. Why then is it still so difficult to achieve excellence? Why does real success and high achievement still elude so many of us? Why aren’t we now all highly successful?

This is a profound question. The road to excellence is now well understood. Why then do so many intelligent, willing people have so much trouble travelling this road?

The problem is that knowing what road to travel, and having the ability to travel that road are two separate things. It requires both the knowledge of the road as well as the skills to overcome the challenges this road presents in order to acquire excellence and become successful

In this series of blog entries I will introduce you to the Habits of Mind that we all have, but that need to be developed in order to successfully travel the road to excellence.

An understanding of the Habits of Mind are essential if you are to successfully travel the road to excellence.