Good enough

At our workshops recently we’ve been doing a planning exercise for 2015. One of the things we do is look at both our successes and our failures and ask what did we learn. It’s a great exercise because you come up with a guideline for yourself to help you make this year your best year yet.It’s essential to acknowledge excellence when you achieve it, and not hide behind false modesty. It gives you a benchmark for your own performance, it stands as a beacon for what you are capable of.It’s also essential to acknowledge honestly where you didn’t measure up, and not hide behind false consolation. And rather than look at those areas where you failed dismally, look at those areas where you did okay but not great, where you know you could have done better. In particular look at those areas where it was important you delivered to your best but you didn’t get there, because we know that we get the best return when we go from good to great rather than from weak to good.You’ll likely find that the main difference is in preparation: you might have worked hard on it, but perhaps you stopped creating new material too early. Perhaps you subconsciously decided that what you had was good enough, and you started shaping before you had fully explored whether what you had was the best.Maybe you didn’t take enough of a particular kind of risk, or maybe you didn’t think through sufficiently how you would achieve the outcome you were after.As much as anything, you probably settled for slightly less than what you were capable of, and partly because you didn’t consciously ask myself “is this the best I can do or is it good enough”. This is what I mean by hard work: not long hours, but putting in the best effort that we can muster.Kieran Read says that if you play 60 minutes of a test match, your body recovers by the next day. But if you play 80 minutes, it hurts until Thursday. Sometimes, the last 20 minutes, the last bit of effort, is the difference between getting by and getting great. Sometimes, good enough, isn’t.Today, you will have all sorts of invitations to excellence. For most of them, good enough will be good enough, because the activities are of no great consequence. But for the activities that are important, consciously ask yourself as you near completion: is this a case of good enough, or will only excellent do?