It Takes Perfect Effort to Succeed

Scott Kuethen

March 3, 2015

I came into the office this morning only to find myself nearly alone. Gradually, everyone straggled in and slowly got up to speed. I realized that, without an occasional nudge, our human nature gradually tends to let things slip, and we try to get by with doing just a little less. But eventually, we will be disappointed with the results. That half-committed attitude won’t produce a good reputation, customer satisfaction, success in our careers, or contentment in our personal lives.  While we can’t all work at 100% power 100% of the time, we sometimes need a nudge to recalibrate our performance. I wrote an email to our team that I thought I’d share with you, because it’s a message that applies to all of us:

We have an abundance of orders to fill. These are opportunities we cannot and should not squander. For some time, I’ve believed that success requires many things. Consistent, quality effort is one of those and almost goes without saying. I recently saw a sports movie, When the Game Stands Tall, that promotes the idea of aiming for perfect effort rather than a perfect outcome.

I think that’s right. The effort we give day in and day out is where we win or lose, learn, and grow either stronger or weaker and slower. Our perfect effort. Do you strive today to improve over yesterday’s work? Do you work at improving your communication skills, your presentation skills, your facilitation and closing skills? Does the work we do set us apart from our competitors and deliver high-quality results to clients and candidates? If you think this is too much to expect, we should talk…immediately.

I happen to believe that each of us wants greater success in 2015 than we had in 2014. I do. It’s more fun! For that to happen, we’ll all have to be committed to giving perfect effort.

 I once read that 80% of success is showing up. I’ll leave the dissection of the other 20% for another day. For now though, no one can expect success if they’re not showing up. It’s too easy to get casual about the hours devoted to work. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll find yourself in a rut of showing up around 8:30 a.m.-ish, taking an hour-ish lunch and calling it quits at 5. If you want success, that just won’t work. It’s not sustainable. Everyone on this team has the potential for more.

Make the decision now to break that habit and replace it with a commitment to showing up, investing the time, and giving your perfect effort.

How about you? Have you been letting your commitment to work or your personal life slip? Well, consider this your nudge to recalibrate, get back on your game, and put forth the effort it takes to succeed!

What does the job market look like in 2015? Read more.