Almost vs Good Enough – Goal Setting
I have a personal saying “You may have almost made it to the toilet but you still crapped your pants”
I have another saying , “If you do more than good enough, you wasted resources”
Put them together and you are trying to achieve balance. But they work particularly well in black and white situations. These sayings don’t work well when there are shades of gray. For example, like school grades, you have A, B, C, D, and F. But if the goal is to get an A, then you can’t say I got a B and still passed. You passed but did not make the goal. If the goal is to pass, then shoot for a D-. That is still passing.
A problem arises when you set a realistic goal, say saving up $100 in a year. You look at your goal but its too easy. My response, the goal is not worth it. Then you make an outrageous goal. Save $100,000 in a year. Probably not going to happen if you make less than $100,000 a year.
When you watch a game and see the losers say “We almost won, if we just made that last field goal”, my response “you still lost” and you will see the other team saying “Wins are hard to come by and we’ll take it”
When you bring in your car for a safety inspection or emissions test. You don’t care if you barely passed, you are just glad that you passed.
When you flip on a light switch, its either on or off.
The magic in all this is the requirements and the goal. When is it clear that you have made your goal? Did you meet the requirements to your goals?
You don’t want to waste time with trivial goals, nor do you want to waste time with unreachable goals. Find that balance between realistic goals and worthwhile goals.
After all, if you not going to make it to your toilet at home, a public bathroom may be good enough.