When Did You Do Your Best?
There is saying that goes “how you do the little things determines how you do the big things.” I agree with that. I hope that I do give my best when doing a task, however, I know that is not the case. It is not that I do a bad job but enough to get by. You know “if the minimum was not good enough it would not be the minimum.” That sort of thinking and acting leads to mediocrity and eventually creeps into all parts of your life.
I don’t mean to say you need to overdo it on everything, especially on menial tasks. However, even when you do those you should give them your direct attention.
My job is not boring, but it does involve a lot of tasks that are similar. Rarely do I have to start with a clean sheet of paper and write original stuff. This leads to reformatting/updating things that were done before. Could I take the time and improve and what was done before, of course, however cost benefit is low. The people up the chain are more concerned if the document or brief meets the requirements and if the previous items worked than that is ok for now.
The times I was consistently focused and did the best on every effort was in landing on the aircraft carrier at night. If you had a do the minimum mindset, it would lead to bad things happening. Now I know this may be an outlier on when I did my best because the outcome had very negative consequences if I didn’t. But it did show me how focused I could be when needed.
As I mentioned earlier, even when you do small things you should still do your best. If you establish this mindset and make it part of your habits you will see an overall improvement in life. Quality always improves with better effort.
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