Perfexcellency

I’m not sure if you all know, but I have always been a sports fan. I enjoy most sports because I enjoy the heat of competition. Over the years of my life, I have spent countless hours playing basketball, baseball, softball, and bowling just to name a few of the activities. Sports used to be more than just competition to me. The idea and focus on excelling and continually getting better consumed me. I would practice at all hours of the day and during any weather condition. I HAD to get better. Who was I getting better for? I wasn’t playing professionally or had any valid dreams whatsoever of that ever happening. I also wasn’t in any truly organized sports leagues. Sure, I was on some simple teams here and there, but nothing ultra competitive. Was I trying to get better because I cared what other people thought? No… well maybe… Was I practicing because I wanted to join a competitive team? No. I was spending my time practicing hours on end because I was trying to satisfy myself.

Satisfaction of my internal competitive desires was, and sometimes still is, impossible. Nothing was ever the best and there could always be something done better. There was always something to focus upon that could have been performed at a higher level. Excellence was an unattainable plateau that could never be reached. In the end, excellence was replaced with perfection. We all know perfection cannot be attained. There is always something that could have been done just a bit better. Even a perfect game in baseball is not all that perfect. Was every pitch a strike? No. Is a perfect game with 27 strikeouts better than one with 3? Is a perfect game with 60 pitches better than one with 110? It’s all relative, but to whom? It’s relative to the person and audience in question. In my competitive adventures, the relative question for me became, “Is it the best (i.e. perfect) result from my practice?” If it wasn’t perfect in my version of reality, I practiced more, more, and more. Of course, perfection was never going to happen, but yet I continued to pursue it.

This is just the story of an admitted weekend warrior. How do the truly gifted athletes view their version of excellence? Do they interchange the word excellence with perfection? If you took a poll of professional athletes, I believe the true answer would easily be a majority answering perfection is their goal. Athletes practice to achieve perfection. If you watched professional football last season, perfection was all that was talked about for most of the season. The New England Patriots were on pace to record only the second ever undefeated regular season in NFL history. Week after week, highlight after highlight, we were treated with their race towards perfection. As most of us know, they were able to achieve regular season perfection and they were the first NFL team EVER to win 16 regular season games without a defeat. The only other team to reach perfection “only” won 14 regular season games. That team also completed their run through the playoffs undefeated and won the Super Bowl. However, the Patriots failed in their final game to achieve victory. Their race to complete perfection fell one game short. They lost the Super Bowl. They “failed” to achieve perfection.

I can comfortably sit here and “predict” that we will never see a Major League Baseball team go undefeated. We will never see an NBA team go undefeated. We will never see a major sports team that plays the amount of games they are required to play, compete for an entire season without losing. Yes, it is statistically possible to go undefeated, but it is relatively impossible. But, the players are shooting for perfection. They begin each season with an unblemished record and their goals are set for the stars. Excellence and the pursuit of perfection is the adrenaline of competition. Success is the resulting product of time spent in pursuit of this goal. Every player lives with the rational knowledge that perfection is unachievable, but that doesn’t create a roadblock large enough to stop them from aspiring to reach their goals.

Goals of perfection, we all have them. Athletes are easy to identify in this regard. What goals of perfection and/or of excellency do we harbor? Do we want to attend our jobs but never utilize a sick day? Do we want to complete every project under budget and ahead of schedule? Do we want to show up early and leave late every day? What is our version of excellence in our daily work life? What about home life? What are your goals of perfection there? Everyone has different ideas for what truly achieves perfection in their lives, but more often than not, the same goals are followed and reached for across the board. In the end, striving for perfection and the attainment of goals are usually for the satisfaction of one thing. Are we satisfying our own personal needs for being the best we can be? Sure, sometimes that is the answer. Are we satisfying the needs of those around us because the achievement of our goals helps our communities succeed? Sure, that also can sometimes be the answer. However, the majority of the time, excelling at competition and the pursuit of perfection is about pride, the pride that comes with being the best.

If you sit down and be truthful with yourself, are you trying to be the best to satisfy a hunger within yourself that isn’t tied to pride, more than likely not. I’m not saying that striving to achieve perfection is wrong, but I am saying that the reasoning for the pursuit can truly alter how you lead your life during the race. If attaining the goal defines your life and alters the relationships around you, even if you succeed, you may actually lose. Pride can also consume your life. It can alter your life and change how others interact with you. People don’t want to interact with people only interested in their own personal satisfaction. They want to talk and deal with people whose goals are those of the group. Group goals of excellence and perfection can also be detrimental. It is a very fine line to walk when pursuing a goal of perfection. That is why we must focus on what is truly attainable. We are not settling for second best, we are not accepting failure, and we are not focusing upon the pride attached with being number one.

Striving for the best is usually our goal, but we must maintain a balance within our lives. Perfection and/or excellence, or perfexcellency as it is called here, must not be viewed as the ultimate goal of our lives in any endeavor we enter. Doing so will lead us into the trap of functioning for pride. It may be cliché, but if we truly give our best at whatever we do, we win. We may not win the game or the promotion or whatever the prize may be. But, we will win by knowing that at that moment in time, we performed to the best of our ability. We excelled, albeit we were not perfect. Who is in a better position, someone who threw everything away to win or someone who gave their all and did so while maintaining their integrity and relationships along the way? We can all continue to strive to be the best we can be, but we must not allow pride to be our motivational factor. I will continue to pursue excellence, but perfection will not be my definition of achievement. Can you accept imperfection in your pursuits? You must or your pursuits will never end.