A long time ago, to succeed, it was enough for you to be good. Having an acceptable level of skill was enough to open up good career opportunities. Today’s professional fields, however, are much more different. In this world of constant change, what is good enough today is unsatisfactory tomorrow. Being complacent in this environment puts you at risk of getting left behind.
“Good enough” just won’t cut it. To succeed and flourish in the career market these days, you would have to constantly go above and beyond your own expectations of excellence.
Complacent Mediocrity
In the standards of a different time, merely being good enough was more than sufficient to get you places. After all, if the second best isn’t available, there wouldn’t be time for the best. People accepted that there were no perfect solutions and what they could provide now was enough to get by. Good was better than nothing, and that was that.
Deadlines being what they are, getting something good enough done on time is sometimes necessary for practicality. However, settling for anything less than the best should not become a guiding principle. Moreover, half-hearted efforts and their half-baked outputs can only go so far; customers are not going to like an unfinished product that barely meets expectations.
Settling for “good enough” is a sign of complacency and puts you at risk of obsolescence. When you are content with “good enough,” you risk being overtaken by others and lose opportunities to advance your career.
Surpassing Your Potential
Furthermore, settling for mediocrity is not going to serve your potential at all. Your skills—be they natural talents or learned abilities—would not amount to much if you do not constantly challenge yourself, much like how muscles atrophy without exercise. You will never know what you’re capable of doing if you don’t resolve to push the boundaries of what you can do.
Even Michael Phelps, cited as a textbook example of in-born advantage, doesn’t coast by solely on what he could already do. He trains far more than other Olympians to meet the challenges of his competitive swimming. And it pays off; he dominates a field where a tiny fraction of a second could mean the difference between victory and defeat.
Casting aside this attitude of complacency is essential to unlocking your potential to excel in a highly competitive world. To truly become outstanding, you have to push the envelope just a little further and go a step beyond the extra mile. You’d be surprised at what you can do and accomplish if you work smarter and harder with this in mind.
Why settle for 100 percent when your abilities can take you to 110.5?
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