Leadership Tip of the Day (TOTD)

"Striving for excellence motivates you, striving for perfection is demoralizing."--Harriet Braiker.

I've always enjoyed this quote as a way to keep my perspective.  If you look at the second part of the quote first...perfection is elusive.  Often, when we think of excellence or success, we think that we have to be perfect.  Striving for perfection is setting yourself up for defeat.  The reason is simple.  Perfection cannot be attained.  Pretending that it can be, and making that your daily goal, will leave you frustrated, and eventually lead you to give up on whatever task you are trying to complete.

Striving for excellence is a different scenario.  You have to first decide what excellence is.  Webster defines excellence simply as "extremely high quality."  It doesn't say anything about being perfect or making no mistakes.  "Extremely high quality."  I can do that.  I can work hard and do my absolute best.  I can learn from trial and error to get better at any task.  Excellence can be attained.  The better I get at something, the more likely I will be motivated to continue to work at it to improve even more.
Malcolm Gladwell introduced the concept of "10,000 hours" in his book, Outliers.  He suggested that to become an "expert" in anything you had to put in 10,000 hours of practice or work.  You want to be a great writer?  Practice.  You want to be a great golfer?  Practice.  You must put in the work to be excellent.

Time to retrain your focus:  Don't worry about being perfect...work toward attaining excellence.  Be willing to put in the time to work toward "extremely high quality."