You ever get to that point where you wonder why you are working on a project at all? You pour time, effort, energy & soul into something & it just doesn’t work the way you wanted or expected it to work. You have, in your perspective, a big steaming pile of mediocrity which was intended for greatness. The problem? It just isn’t.
Execution is hard. Great execution is harder still. And, flawless execution is mythical. Excellence is the result of a tremendous amount of focused, intense, hard work. For something to be worthy of the dragon you are, it needs to be excellent. I’m reminded of an Earl Nightingale quote
Excellence always sells.
— Earl Nightingale
The reason is simple, it’s hard to do. You are always being challenged by the best around – yourself. We think our competitors are the other companies & folks who are in our space. Truthfully, we are always competing against ourselves which is the toughest competition because we are already as good as ourselves. We have to study ourselves. We have to constantly strive to improve in hopes of catching the excellence we want to give to the world.
Gentlemen, we will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence.
― Vince Lombardi Jr.
Today, I’m super frustrated with myself. All the big ideas I had in my head are not coming out the way I want them to. I want excellence to naturally flow, but it’s not going to. I have to do lots more hard work before I get anywhere near the desired result. I’m going to badly miss the mark I’ve set for a project due tomorrow. Badly. There isn’t enough time to rectify it. I will have to endure the mediocrity I produced this time around, and all I can do is learn & move on. Keep chasing perfection. Keep pushing through until the moment comes where I execute well. Keep pushing through, dragons.