One of the goals I made myself for the year was to give “Extra Effort ALL The Time.” As we are now almost two months into the year, I realize a couple of things. First, writing down your goals and looking at them every day is extremely important. And second, you are not going to be good at achieving all your goals. There are just some things that you are naturally better at than others, and I guess that’s why deep down we give ourselves goals so we can improve.
My goal of “Extra Effort ALL The Time” was aimed at a particular phenomenon. Some days, I get so passionate about details and projects. Other days, I just say “oh the hell with it.” But it is a motivating factor that drives me and has my whole career, which is why I care so much about getting things right.
Some people in the past have told me “no matter how good I do, it is never enough for you,” and they are right. I don’t mean that in a bad way. What I mean is that I always feel there is more that can be done, there is something that could be better, or simply a mindset of continuous improvement. It doesn’t fit well for everyone, but it seems to work in my philosophy, so I guess I will keep doing it.
Extra Effort ALL The Time hit me especially hard today, Thursday, February 23. Maybe it had to do with the date 2.23.23, which in itself is kind of cool. But nevertheless, it happened. While it was only a day trip to visit clients in South Georgia and Central Florida, it was going to be a long day with a charity event I was scrambling to get home to that my wife had organized. I woke up at about 3:30 a.m. as I sometimes do. Even though had an alarm set for 5:15 a.m., I couldn’t go back to sleep. As I tossed and turned with thoughts of exhaustion, I also felt hungry because between trying to help with all the shuttling around of kids from different activities the night before, I barely ate dinner.
So there I am, tired and unable to go back to sleep. Hungry with nothing to eat and the thought of an 18-hour day ahead of me. It was really hard to get out of bed, but I did anyway. I got dressed, fed the dog, and went to the airport. Tired as hell I climbed into the airplane and took off. It was nice of the pilot to pick up Chic-Fil-A so very early in the day. I got over the hunger part of the equation, but then I felt my heart start beating fast. Almost to the point where I thought something was wrong. So I closed my eyes – focused on just trying to slow my breathing and then heard the landing gear go down. It was time to land and get the show on the road. I composed myself, even as my phone was blowing up, to get what I needed to handle done before pulling into a parking lot at the very moment my meeting was starting. After opening the car door and walking into the dealership, my reflexes took over and I went on about my day doing my job.
After both cities and flying home, I realized today was a true day of working on my goal of Extra Effort ALL The Time. I didn’t want to go anywhere today, but I did. I didn’t feel like working this hard today, but I did. And sometimes it is just making it through this kind of day that gives you a feeling of winning.