“Excellence is not an act but a habit” – Aristotle

Some good habits create the foundation for the pursuit of personal excellence. An important one is your attendance and punctuality, these little things when added up over time make a big difference.

Avoiding the fatal excuse syndrome. If you are late to school because you slept in, the reason for being late is not that you slept in. Sleeping in is the outcome. I slept in this morning because I forgot to reset my alarm at the end of the weekend, this is the reason. You learn from it and it becomes a one-off and generally will not happen again for some time.

Opportunities for happiness and success are increased by developing the routines and positive patterns of behaviour that provide the foundation to become the best version of yourself. Being on time tends to require some prior planning and organisation. Organised people tend to be happier because they control more of the outcomes. When you are in control, or at the very least can influence what happens for you during most of your days, for much of the day, you are automatically in a better state of mind.

This is a reason why I believe that happiness leads to success.  Being able to take charge and influence your day sets a positive, optimistic, can-do attitude. You have planned for good outcomes and you, therefore, expect to be successful.

Confidence, optimism, happiness – call it what you will, it is fundamentally down to our attitude. Good organisation is a great place to start to get a positive can and will do attitude. It takes time at the front end but will save you time and anxiety later on.

Each week plan the week ahead. Just say for example,  that this morning I slept in. Because I had planned my day out the previous evening, there was less stress when I arrived late because I knew what I had to do today. I also knew that I couldn’t change what time I got there. You choose to stay calm and start from where you are now. I let myself down by forgetting to set my alarm, or more accurately not remembering that setting my alarm is an important part of my routine every day. Luckily, my planning saved me from today becoming a nightmare. I chose my attitude toward waking up late. There is nothing I could do about it other than choose to stay calm and then rely on my prior planning to minimise the fallout.

The letters for WIN stand for What’s Important Now? To me, this means, always defaulting to the best version of you that you can be. That starts with planning and then aiming for 100% attendance and punctuality every day.