Meant to share this earlier, but I encourage you to click over even if you get there after the voting has closed: Do the exercise for yourself.

Luciano Passuello is hosting a personal excellence project over at Litemind, a blog which is a new favorite for me ~

About Litemind:

Litemind is about exploring ways to use our minds efficiently. This translates to a wide variety of topics such as creativity, problem-solving, visual thinking, memory, self-mastery and more.

Luciano’s project was a shout-out to his readers for our tips on personal excellence. This was the one I contributed, falling in at #43 on the list of 66:

Align effort with personal values.
Kulia i ka nu’u is my Hawaiian value-alignment for excellence. It means ’strive to the summit’. Be your best. Don’t settle for less, for there’s no honor or fulfillment in aiming lower than you’re capable of achieving. My tip is to harness competition in this way: Do not compete with, or compare yourself to others; if compete you must, compete with your previous self. [details] (by Rosa Say)

The voting task was then to narrow the 66 down to 5 personal favorites. I think Luciano’s project resulted in a very flexible and context-relevant exercise, for I can readily see how my own picks would change over time, and with different circumstances in light of what my goals happened to be. It is the kind of exercise that has no right answer other than your own, because your focus is the entire point of it all.

It’s also a pretty fabulous testament to the power of collaborative community/reader energy; love it.

At first I chose 18 different ones (including my own, just for the
affirmation of it!) and then I narrowed them down further, settling on these as my five favorites: The bolding shares the tip itself (you can visit the list to read what the contributor had to say about it) and the italics are mine, with more about why I chose them:

14. Learn one sentence in a foreign language.
Different cultures can teach us so much: I am currently experiencing
this in corresponding with someone who also speaks English but with
entirely different sense of place context – besides learning, it is
such fun!

21. Health, the neglected point.
Without your health everything else is a moot point (and you will age much more gracefully, and with more gratitude).

29. Don’t presume” ask!
I doubt there is a better productivity tip than forcing yourself to
have more conversations with other people: We were not meant to live on
this earth alone, and conversation is the killer app for pursuing
excellence and nearly everything else.

34. If you don’t have space for what you want in your life, it will never come to you.
I generally believe in having an abundance mentality versus one of
scarcity, however the concept of “making room” is very powerful. It
also gets us to shed the clutter and auto-pilot, reveal comfort zones.

42. Do The Simplest Thing That Could Possibly Work.
Yes, yes, yes!!! Somewhat connected to the abundance thinking, I much
prefer the vitality and learning of variety to the complications of
complexity. Simple is also more conducive to sharing and making room
for others (connected to #34 from the human standpoint.)

What are your choices?
Comment for Luciano: I will look for you there :)