What differentiates perfectionism from excellence? I only learned the difference recently.
Reading this quote from the book “Work Clean: The life-changing power of mise-en-place to organize your life, work, and mind”, changed how I approached my work.
I used to feel proud by saying I was a perfectionist. That meant months, years of planning every single detail of everything. Setting the stakes higher as time went by.
Perfectionism is a great excuse for trying to control the results. Nothing more. Excellence, on the other hand, is quality delivered:
Excellence is not about creating something of the highest quality, it’s delivering something of the highest quality, with all the constraints that delivery entails — deadlines, expectations, contingencies, feedback. For the chef, the deadline is integral to quality. Without delivery, there’s no feedback, severing the improvement loop that creates excellence. Excellence is quality delivered – Dan Charnas on Work Clean.
Quality delivered + feedback is how you become excellent. Perfecting a project is not perfection. Is whatever you fear holding you back.
Excellence is quality delivered.
Want to write? Write! Want to code? Code! Want to give a talk? Give a talk!
That’s how you achieve excellence.
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