Do Our Best Every Time

The pursuit of excellence leads us on a journey of self-improvement that can be simplified to doing the best we can and doing better with each chance we get. Excellence demands that we fully apply ourselves maximizing the use of our abilities and knowledge and always strive to produce something better than our previous efforts produced.

Our results at first will only be slightly better than the standard of ordinary as we measure our surroundings at the time. With each opportunity to apply our abilities and expand our experiences we move ourselves step-by-step to a higher level of performance. Just like using our muscles in our exercise program, the more they are used the stronger they become. It is the same with our pursuit of excellence. The more we add to our experiences and learn how to more deeply leverage our talents, the greater the outcome we produce.

In doing the best that we can do, we can fully apply ourselves to see what the best we can do really is. If you are like me, there are many times I have given something less that one hundred percent subconsciously on purpose as a guard against failure. My misguided reasoning would go something like, I will give this a good shot, but not really everything I have so that if it fails, I do not have to face the reality that the best I could do was not good enough. This is a trap that does not serve us well. It does not protect us from failure, but in fact creates a greater likelihood of failure. Not doing our best cannot produce our best results. It will at best produce ordinary results.

One of the biggest challenges is to put aside our ”risk buffer” and actually attempt the very best we can do. We often rationalize our ordinary performance by leaving something on the table so that we do not have to deal with the realization that our best effort was not good enough. The problem is if we hold on to that buffer we never really find out what we can do and we lose the opportunity to make larger strides in our progress.

The idea that somehow not doing our best protects us from risk is just an illusion. Anytime we do not do our best we are by definition producing a lower level of output than we are capable of producing. With a lower level of performance we have increased the likelihood that someone else will produce a more effective result than we have and actually increase our exposure to criticism.

In order to pursue excellence we have to put it all on the table every time. We can not leave something behind to protect our ego from the true reality. If as part of our pursuit we position ourselves to learn from every experience doing less than our best because it might not be good enough seems laughable. All that we truly risk when we do our best is dealing with the reality of where we truly are when compared to the ordinary.

However, in the past ordinary results have been good enough. It was safe (so we thought) being good enough as there was always somebody worse and ordinary was good enough. In fact, occasionally good enough was rewarded sufficiently to allow us to believe we were exceeding expectations without having to do all of the work. Compared to someone who is on a journey of excellence, we will be falling behind as the standard continues to be raised. Not giving one hundred percent will become a self-fulfilling formula for mediocracy, leaving us exposed and conditioned to underperforming and overall not driving our personal satisfaction.

We might surprise ourselves that we are more capable than we thought, or discover that we are not much better when fully engaged than when we did not fully apply ourselves. In the worst case at least we know where we stand and in the best case at least we know where we stand. The only difference being our own self-perception, which we control anyway.

There is no other sure path to excellence than to take the risk of doing the best we can do. We are not trying to be perfect, just better than last time, every time.

Here are some tips to be sure we are doing our best:

1. Make sure we understand the goal. What is it we are trying to accomplish? Are we clear on the result we are trying to produce?
2. Make a plan. Stop to give some thought to how we will go about producing the result we want. Identify the steps and identify the gaps.
3. Compare our planned result to the “ideal” outcome. Will this produce the desired outcome? Is this the best we can do?
4. Follow our plan. Now that we have a great plan, produce great results. Follow the plan, but don’t get trapped in trying to be perfect. Just do your best.
5. Analyze the outcome. How did it go? Did it produce the result you wanted? Was it your best effort? What could you have done better?

By taking the time to analyze the outcome we have the opportunity to do better next time. By doing better next time we are continuously improving and now find ourselves on the journey to excellence.

Thank you for taking the time to be part of this exercise. I look forward to hearing more about your journey to excellence.

Thanks,
Skip Gilbert