When Good Enough Is Not Good Enough
Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back.
We must be extraordinary. Excellence in all we do is one of the core values that we are forced to memorize in the U.S. Air Force. In other words, be the best of the best and don’t mess up.
Supposedly average is unacceptable and normal is boring. Good enough is not good enough.
The secret is that people are taking the ordinary and boasting as if it is extraordinary.
You called the recycling truck to pick up our used paper then you just saved the government thousands of dollars and single-handedly halted climate change. That’s how absurd every little act was written up in performance reports to fake excellence for members when I served.
No one wants to be average because average means mediocre, second-rate, passable. Average says you’re nothing special, but you’ll do for now.
That nagging aversion to being average is why we let perfectionism keep us paralyzed. Many feel that if they cannot perform to perfection, then they will not perform at all. Boom, they’re stuck. Doomed to fail because they refuse to try because of the fear of failing.
We need to be honest about excellence. We need to recognize that human beings are not machines so excellence in all we do…
