How to be excellent | Psyche Guides

We can obtain respect, comfort and time when we distinguish between leisure and play.

• In Politics, Aristotle considers leisure as time spent learning and contemplating, trying to achieve excellence. It is about growth.
• Play is about rest and recovery.

For Aristotle, we need to spend our day in work, growth and recovery. Recovery is necessary for both work and growth.

Excellence depends on developing your talents. If we don't get an education appropriate to our craft, we won't be able to become excellent.

Plato points out that if education is too rigidly fixed on a narrow set of crafts, we risk feeling useless because our talents don't fit into what we're taught. That means excellence requires a society to accommodate diverse talents and support many different paths. Even if you missed out on an education in youth, the internet offers nonconventional options to learn and grow.

Aristotle states that our education begins in the forming of good habits as habits help us grow.

At first, habits are imposed upon us by others, such as teachers and mentors. Later on, we reach a critical moment where we question these habits to discover the reason behind them. If we are to become an excellent student, we will not abandon the habits nor stick to them dogmatically - we will try to improve upon them.

• We achieve excellence. Achieving excellence for the first time is only the start.
• We contemplate. Next, we observe what's good and how to apply it to a craft.
• We act. When we apply what is good to our craft, our craft becomes a medium for expressing excellence. It means that we make something for others to experience.

At times, we should take a break from action and return to contemplation. We should continue to refine our understanding of excellence and apply it to what we do.