Finding Balance & Fulfillment in the Pursuit of Excellence
Excellence isn't the same thing as achievement.
Every Monday, we revisit one of the listener questions we’ve answered in a previous episode. It’s been edited for clarity & brevity here, but if you want to get the full version, links to the full episode are below the text.
Patrick: Here’s a question in our Think bucket:
I'm always striving to chase excellence to be the best I can be, but like all imperfect humans, I sometimes fall short, make a mistake, or react badly.
I find that when that happens, I let it consume me, beating myself up, becoming very disappointed in myself, and letting it affect me mentally and emotionally.
How do we find the middle ground of chasing excellence but give ourselves grace when we fall short and do not achieve that?
Ben: Beautiful. I love our listeners, and kudos to this person for this level of awareness.
Here's where I would challenge the listener, though. I would challenge the way they're defining “chasing excellence.”
It sounds like they're chasing accolades, awards, or validation. They're chasing achievements.
To me, chasing excellence is the awareness they already exhibit in the question itself.
Can you be aware of when you’re things shift inside? When something happens, somebody says something, we read something, and our well-being is affected.
Above all else, we want to maintain a sense of well-being. We want to feel good inside.
Too often, what we do to get that feeling is look to the next raise, the next purchase, the next sign that we’re doing a good job.
Patrick: We look to the extrinsic, not the intrinsic.
Ben: Exactly right.
And what we're looking for is not to satisfy the extrinsic but to work internally.
That’s basically Chasing Excellence, 2.0.
At the beginning of these conversations, yes, it was about becoming disciplined, a hard charger, and somebody willing to do the hard work.
But after a while, that becomes who you are.
When it does, we then need to recognize that fulfillment is not on the other side of those things. It’s not on the other side of discipline or external validation.
Fulfillment is in the here and now - especially the here and now when the world is not lining up with our expectations.
Because that’s the reality.
We're not going to be able to control the outside world.
There are 8 billion people on planet Earth.
If our objective is to get those 8 billion people to do what we want, to behave to our liking, to treat us the way that we think we deserve so we can be at peace - well, we're setting ourselves up for massive levels of angst, anxiety, stress, and disappointment.
Instead, we want to work on responding when things don’t go how we’d prefer.
Your boss isn't going to treat you the way you want. She’s not going to recognize your contributions. She’s not going to acknowledge your skillset. Okay? How can you be okay with that?
Your spouse is going to say things that trigger you. He will act and behave in ways you wish he wouldn't.
Don’t think: Did I marry the right person? Or: Why did they act like that?
Think: How should I respond?
It’s on us.
We're quick to point fingers, but let's pull the thumbs and work on responding to these situations.
And that, to me, is a massive part of chasing excellence.
We want to be fulfilled on the inside, which will only come when we feel okay, regardless of what's happening around us.
Original Episode: