Designed for Life

Measuring up to some kind of standard, wants to excel or exceed the performance or the expectations of others: wants to be fastest, lirst, longest, earliest, most thorough, biggest, better than others.

If you had been gifted with this purpose, here is what we might say to you in explanation:

Achievement for you means attaining excellence. You reach for and exceed the performance of others. You desire to win, to be the fastest, most effective, smartest and best. You thrive on competition, the standards set before you and other people striving for the same goals you want to reach. If you can't compete with others, you will perhaps compete with yourself in efforts that test your potential and cause you to grow and develop expertise. You find and pit yourself against those challenges that allow you to excel and give you a clear shot at being the best.

Although there may be an adventurous side to your nature that is thrilled in the face of risk, you are aware of the possibility of failure or of coming in second best, so you likely have a careful and calculating side. You may like to try the course out, gain a feel for the ropes, get some familiarity and practice before the real test begins.

You imagine coming in first and pulling off a challenge better than anyone else. You see yourself going through the steps in your mind's eye. Having fastened your hopes and attention on the objective, you begin to search for and identify those angles and advantages upon which you can build an approach to amplify your strengths and get the results you're after.

In your youthful achievements, you expressed your purpose in achievements like winning more marbles than any other kid on the block; being the fIrst person at summer camp to make out; solving a math problem in class that even had the professor stumped; getting to the top of Mount Washington ftrst; becoming an Eagle Scout when you were only 15; being the first member of your family to attend college; being the youngest person in your graduating class; getting the highest CPA in your dorm; drinking more beer in a chug-a-Iug contest than anyone else at the party; getting more interviews upon graduation than any of your friends; being offered a good job before anyone else in your graduating class (actually, you had five offers!).

At work, you have never ranked below lOth place nationally in annual sales; you were promoted to a district manager 3 years before your closest competitor; you were the first person from Marketing ever invited to speak at the National Research Conference; you brought a new product to the market six months before schedule; you Were the only person ever to be awarded Golden Hands award by a large client. You seek to be better than others in every way practically available. Frequently, such excelling is of a quantitative nature, e.g., amount of salary, level in the organizations, numbers of subordinates. Any opportunity which otherwise hooks into your pattern reveals its power over perception and performance: the first computerized product inventory program in the industry; the fifth highest dollar per call in sales; promoting a Christmas charity at work which broke all previous records; building the largest software product line - are good examples of the types of results important to you.

Close to home are issues such as the size of your home and the quality of its furnishings, the size and quality of your automobile, the kind and style of suits and shirts and socks - all reflect a desire to favorably compare with others.

Depending upon the culture and norms esteemed in your church, you would tend to stress a theology which accommodated excelling, and would de-emphasize or ignore doctrines which do not accommodate excelling; e.g., you would stress memorization of the Word, evangelizing the unbelievers; you might tend to ignore the work of the Holy Spirit, unmerited grace, repentance. You might stress works to demonstrate faith, being zealous "whatever we do" and letting our lights shine, and would not be inclined to seriously deal with such pivotal subjects as sin, justification, or unseen suffering In less theological terms, and again depending upon cultural norms and the rest of your Pattern, you would tend to favor a more vigorous and or larger missions program, Sunday School, choir and singles club. You would not be sensitive to or supportive of a greater need for shepherding, in-depth Bible study, personal counseling on complex emotional and spiritual problems.

At the level of social action, you could be at the forefront of community drives to reduce the city's crime rate; take on chairmanship of a college committee to raise funds for a new science building which, when built, would be the best in the state. You could get actively involved in studying your denomination's failure to maintain its superiority in total numbers and growth rate.

On the other hand, you would likely not be part of the drive to integrate the local high school or to dissuade management of an industrial plant from a decision to slow up their expenditures for pollution control; or to accept chairmanship of a long~ term study group appointed by the mayor to consider problems of the aging.

On the dark side, you would tend to be scornful of an average performer at work and would put little effort in helping salvage a career. Similarly, at home, the C student daughter sees more of your unpleasant side and probably feels (and possibly is) unloved; your smoldering anger at a boss on his way down, or a new product which couldn't be given away; your envy over a new hot dog who landed a big new account; your ulcerating anxiety after a transfer to the super office over whether you can excel among a bunch of big hitters who have most of the big accounts.

EXCEL - BE THE BEST