Women of Excellence - Who Are They?
This piece comes as the result of having someone say to me a few years back that they viewed me as a “woman of excellence”. When I asked for elaboration, the young woman who spoke the words couldn’t come up with a definitive list of adjectives to describe “woman of excellence” and summed it up in one word – WISDOM! Wisdom, she said, that comes with age and experience.
I became curious and studied the word “excellence” so that I could help other women in the 2nd half of life’s journey darts suppliers in touch with their own unique form of excellence – something very important for me as a destiny-design coach and even more so for the women who seek my support through the growth process.
A look at Proverbs 31 gave me the answers I was looking for! While the woman described at the close of Solomon’s book of wisdom appears to be “superwoman”; culling the meaning of each attribute brings the language and the attributes into modern perspective.
Women of Excellence are diligent, mature and wise (there’s that word again).
They are industrious and marketplace savvy.
A Woman of Excellence is strong in character and an excellent manager.
She is a strong leader who is wise in the use of her strength.
She is honest and caring, compassionate and generous.
And finally, she is respected for her integrity and admired by all who know her.
She is more precious than diamonds!
How do women achieve this? And is it possible to achieve this BEFORE we reach mid-age or beyond? I don’t think so and my professional experience it out. I meet many young women who have some of the attributes of Women of Excellence, but not all. They haven’t lived long enough, or experienced enough of life – some would say they haven’t suffered enough. I am unwilling to go that far.
We live in a day when our society and its many ills have wrecked havoc on so many women’s lives that it’s a wonder they have survived at all – let alone achieved a level of excellence. And yet it is that very havoc that often leads women to seek a level of self-discovery and find those who can help them achieve a self-concept that leads into an awareness of their destiny design and life purpose. Both are necessary for inner peace and integrity. And both inner peace and integrity is one of the first steps into Excellence!
I encourage women entering mid-life to take time to explore who they are, where they’ve come from, where they want to go and where they too are Women of Excellence. I encourage women reading this to do the same and in future articles, we’ll explore the concept of Excellence in more detail.