Knowledge is of no significant value if it is not put into action that produces results. It is results that matter the most! Learning and practicing concurrently and continually is the way to building and enhancing the necessary expertise to achieve, sustain, and advance excellence.
What makes people the best is that they successfully outperform their peers, personally, professionally, spiritually, and socially. Relative to their peers, they are closer to God, make more efforts...
Don’t give up! Remain steadfast and continue to learn from your missteps and build on your successes until you meet your Lord with the highest level of accomplishment and excellence. If you falter, fall or fail, stand up, improve, and go on. The lifetime journey for excelling in this life for the next is full of challenges and obstacles that require a lot of effort and expertise, which both necessitate patience[1] and perseverance. It does not happen overnight nor is it achieved through quick fixes.
Do not let the beauty and enjoyment of excellence enslave you to the temptations of this world and draw you away from God. Instead, let your lifetime journey for excelling have the purpose of drawing you towards God and preparing you for your afterlife. God, will then make you among His best stewards on earth and His best guests in heaven.
Now it is time for a full multidimensional action [Jihād] that builds on all the nine virtues so that the journey is complete and your soul is ready to return to its Lord in the highest degree of excellence. Linguistically, Jihad means to make an effort. So, anytime you are making an effort to do something great for God’s cause, you are performing an act of Jihad and you are called a mujāhid.
Commit yourself to achieving, sustaining, and advancing excellence, and set high standards but not too high to the point where your pursuit of excellence turns into a paralyzing perfectionism. Perfection is pursued not with the intent that it can be attained but so that excellence is continually advanced. Don’t worry if your work is not perfect because it can not be.
