Soul Excellence is an evolving concept. A few weeks back, the logo helped to provide a visual representation of the concept and aligned almost perfectly to my experience embodying my personal values on the Camino de Santiago.
As I’ve gotten feedback from friends and family who are reading the blog or listening to the podcast, I’ve been reflecting daily on what exactly is Soul Excellence. Once again, the logo provided a visual representation for me to build on!
In just a few minutes on Sunday afternoon, I looked at the logo, I thought about the pathway or process of Soul Excellence, and suddenly I saw it. I scribbled it down in my notebook, and then I hopped over to Canva.com to create a prettier version.
Here’s what I drew:
Allow me to explain. Soul Excellence starts with your Personal – or individual – Integrity, the alignment with your values and principles coupled with your purpose – or desire to create a purpose. It takes self-awareness and a desire to know the truth to uncover, rediscover, or perhaps discover for the very first time what truly drives you.
With this clarity, you can then focus on Expression, Inspiration, and Excellence.
And through your expression of your unique self, inspiration of others through your words and actions, and achievement of excellence toward your goals, you fuel and grow your personal integrity. In short, this symbol represents the lifelong pursuit of individual greatness at the core of your being, or Soul Excellence.
Let’s take a closer look at each pathway.
Expression – Communication, Relationships, Reflection
Expression is the making known of one’s thoughts and feelings, according to Merriam-Webster. Whenever you feel like you cannot easily express yourself, take it as a sign that you are not aligned to your Soul Excellence. When your thoughts, feelings, opinions, and beliefs flow through you and out into the world with ease and without fear, you can trust that you are living aligned to your values. Expression forms the basis of your relationships and reflection offers you the change to refine how you express our personal integrity out into the world.
It’s not just your vocabulary or our medium that allow you to express yourself. You express yourself through what you choose to watch or listen to, the relationships you invest in, the clothes that you wear, the experiences you choose to have – it’s all an expression of who you are and what you value.
Inspiration – Context, Audience, Vision
When you are aligned and expressed, you inspire others. You come across as authentic, vulnerable, sensitive, and courageous. You can choose a grand vision and the people you want to spend time with and chose to inspire just by being who you are. When you inspire others, you are usually inspired in return, thus growing your personal integrity.
Excellence – Mission, Goals, Impact
Excellence is about achievement and impact. It’s about ambition and flow. It’s about dreaming a specific dream or choosing a specific goal and creating the conditions that will enable us to achieve that dream or goal. Excellence is also about persistence and refinement. It’s about birthing new ideas into the world. When you achieve what you desire, you break through an upper limit and are free once again to fuel your individual integrity, express, inspire, and excel once again.