Excellence Vs. Perfection

I recently came across the quote “Strive for excellence, not perfection.” by H Jackson Brown Jr. and it inspired me to reflect on the difference between these two concepts.

The distinction between excellence and perfection can be a subtle one. In fact, it can be easy to confuse them - after all, both involve striving to do something well. But the difference between them is essential to how we approach a task and how we view ourselves afterwards.

When we strive for perfection, we are striving for a final result. A perfect, all-or-nothing kind of result. One where mistakes are not tolerated and there is nothing better than what we've done. The unfortunate nature with perfection is it's often unattainable. After all, we're merely human, some things are outside of our control and the world is not a perfect place to work with. As such, often striving for perfection leads us to feel significant pressure, followed by anger, frustration, disappointment and ultimately a feeling that we weren't good enough. Sometimes this experience can result is the decision to quit the task altogether, as perfection posits that anything less than perfect is not worth achieving. As you can imagine, quitting like this can further impact our self-worth and motivation to engage in similar tasks in future.

In contrast with perfectionism, we can strive for excellence. The nuance with striving for excellence is it's more-so related to the process rather than the outcome. With excellence, we're still aiming to do the best we can, even to the point of perfect when possible. However, our focus is on the values-based actions we take to get there. We can focus on doing what we're able to do in that moment - without holding ourselves to unattainable standards with how the end result will look. In doing so,  if a challenge interferes with our plans then we can still act on the principle of excellence by navigating that challenge to the best of our ability. We're more flexible with ourselves and our circumstances, working with the inevitable bumps in the road and proceeding anyways. We can accept that mistakes can and sometimes do happen, we can accept that we're sometimes wrong, and we can accept that there are sometimes results that are better than the ones we ultimately achieved. By taking this approach, we're not working any less hard or "letting ourselves slip." In fact, we're more likely to succeed in the long term because we're able to continue feeling motivated and believing in our own competence. In the end, all of this helps us leave a task with our confidence and self-worth intact and our long-term goals more likely to be achieved.

The next time you're taking on a challenging task, consider which approach you engage with: perfection or excellence. If you're regularly striving for perfection, begin noticing that habit, then practice challenging your thinking by shifting your focus onto achieving excellence instead.