There’s a line adapted from Aristotle but given to us by the historian Will Durant: We are what we repeatedly do. Therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit.
The real question as parents, then, is What are we making our kids do? Excellence isn’t something we pursue as a destination. It’s something we pursue in the doing. Day in and day out. In the little things as well as the big things. It’s something that emerges when we turn that type of pursuit, through action, into a habit. And it’s our job as parents to help our kids understand this. To help them realize who they are by what they do day to day, what they do this day, today.
We are what we do repeatedly.