Do you ever feel like doing a great job is overrated?

When you’re a person who can be relied upon to do the following things, life can become very busy.

• Show up on time.
• Do good work.
• Be responsive.
• Remove stress rather than cause it.
• Practice and perfect your work.

For those of us programmed (or cursed) to do our best and be our best without exception, anything less feels physically painful. We’re not wired to do “just enough to get by.” It’s all in, all the time.

Quite frankly, living a life flying high on the wings of constant diligence and attention to detail can be exhausting. But when the bar you’ve voluntarily set for yourself becomes the reputation that surrounds you, what other choice is there?

The Olympians not only understand this, but as elite competitors they embrace it and relish this refusal to compromise. Maybe it’s in their DNA or maybe at a young age they decided to separate themselves from the pack.

Each of us has the choice to become this person. Nobody is born this way but we can each make the conscious decision to up our game at any time. 

It’s about the commitment to measure twice and cut once, to check the thing one more time before calling it done, to do that one last thing today that you didn’t think you had time to do. It’s triple checking your work when most people stop at a single check. It’s remembering that the extra mile is a lonely one for good reason. It’s about a commitment to quality (remember quality?).

Can you do this?

Can you operate with an Olympian mindset?

In a world of screaming to make our voices heard, this is a guaranteed way of standing out from the pack.