Introduction
The purpose of this post is to take a look at a phenomenon I saw in my life and I think some of you might see in yours: chronic almost-achievement.
The ability to give every task 95%, but avoid giving anything 100% like the plague for fear of failure and self-disappointment.
Outline
What’s a 95%-er?
I had a disturbing revelation over the last while that came to a head when I was watching The Hammer. The premise of the movie is that a washed up ex-champion boxer gets a second chance, at 40, to fight in the Olympics because of his natural boxing talent.
There is a part about 1/2 way through the movie where Jerry (Adam Carolla) is talking with the team coach and the coach says:
I’ve seen guys like you before; you’re a 95%-er. You never give 100%.
… and for some reason that resonated with me big time.
In each activity I do now, I can’t help but have that sentence go through my head: “Am I giving this 100% right now?” and that simple assessment, multiple times throughout the day has changed my approach to a surprising number of things.
One of the biggest changes I noticed is my overall level of happiness and satisfaction is much higher, which seems strange even though it’s only a 5% difference in effort… there is a satisfaction that I did my best and succeeded.
Why is 95% Bad?
95% is almost 100%, right? Why is that so bad?
Looking at my own life, I would have to say it’s bad because it creates a mode of living that is equatable to being in cruise-control.
You are good enough at most things but excellent at nothing. You rarely have to bust your ass at something, and when you do, it’s a lot harder than you thought it would be, further discouraging you from doing it again.
Another comparison would be to your fitness level. Let’s say at some point in your life you were in really excellent shape for an extended period of time. Let’s say you are getting older now and still hold on to your hay-days in your head when you are watching other people do things that are physical and think to yourself:
I could do that no problem! OR I used to do that all the time, no problem!
The problem is that as the years pass and you get in worse and worse shape, you hold on to the belief that you could, if you had to, still do all those things. At some point you create such a strong association between your self-worth and being able to perform whatever task it is that you believe you still can (e.g. lifting heavy weights, running fast, swimming fast, gymnastics, etc.) that your subconscious exists only to maintain that association you have hammered into your psyche.
In order to maintain that reality, you avoid the task you think you can still do at all costs to avoid facing the possible reality that you cannot still perform it. Or you may not avoid the task entirely, but when you do involve yourself with it you do it half-assed. In no time at all you are doing everything at 95%.
An example of this might be avoiding joining a running club because you used to be an amazing runner but now you just jog and you’d rather not find out that you aren’t as fast as you thought you were. Or maybe when you play sports you avoid scenarios where you will have to go full-out and instead schluff the point and let the other team score.
I think once you start down that path, as you get older 95% turns into 85% and the 75% and so on; until you get to the point where you loath yourself and can’t quite pin-point why. You just know you hate yourself and it manifests itself in a bunch of bad ways, e.g. bad habits, drinking, over-eating, cursing, anger, violence,etc.
Why Do People Do It?
Fear of failure; ultimately the fear that if they gave it 100% and still failed, that they do suck and they just confirmed that they sucked by failing at that task. Even more than that, the fear that they can’t be better, even if they wanted to and that their 100% just isn’t good enough.
Some people do it to shirk responsibility. If they never give something 100%, then when they fail it’s not their fault, cause they weren’t “really trying that hard”. This can be another form of masking fear-of-failure though.
I have a fortune from a fortune-cookie taped to my monitor that I got one night after Chinese food that reads:
Not having a goal is much scarier than not reaching one.
That is there to remind me at all times to not give up hope if things seem like they aren’t all a giant ball of success and just to make sure I have a goal and working towards it no matter how mad, tired or pissed off I am.
Sometimes life is full of success… everything is working out, I’m firing on all cylinders and nothing could make it better; those are easy times to get through. It’s the times where things seem shitty, you are stressed out and just want to punch a kitten that you have to hang in there, and drag yourself through towards the light at the end of the tunnel. Things will always get good again for people willing to do that.
It is worse not to have a goal and not be working towards anything.
Am I an Almost-Achiever?
I think you can probably answer this one on your own… things I would suggest looking for are:
- A constant nagging sense that you could have done better at tasks you complete.
- Ex: If I had started earlier, I could have done a better job on that report.
- Ex: If I had made more time to plan, this trip would have been better.
- Ex: If I had practiced 1 more week, my tennis/golf game could have been so much better.
- Ex: If I had just focused more I would have lost more weight.
- A nagging or subtle feeling of knowing you could of done better at something, but for some reason you didn’t.
- Ex: I know I could have beat John at racket ball… how does he keep beating me?
- Ex: I know I could have given a better motivational talk to the group, why was I so scatter-brained?
- You are a great starter but a terrible finisher
- Ex: You start projects all the time, but rarely finish them, or half-finish them.
- Ex: You have no problem promising things to people, but rarely deliver.
- You are never completely happy with your own efforts completing things.
- You are frustrated with yourself often about things you should be doing, but aren’t for some reason.
- Ex: I should be at the gym right now.
- Ex: I should be studying for that exam.
- Ex: I should call the guys and schedule a night out for fun so we can all get together.
The theme here is that you are most likely aware of frustrations you have with yourself regarding how you execute tasks.
How Do I Stop Almost-Achieving?
You just stop. Seriously.
It’s a conscious decision, don’t be scared of it, it feels good, even when you fail.
You just decide that you are done half-assing things. Next time you are playing a sport or working on something, think to yourself:
Am I giving this 100%?
You’ll know the answer right away. If you have that ball of guilt start to build up in your stomach, then you aren’t.
If you aren’t, then start. You’d be surprised how small the distance (in units of effort) between 95% and 100% are. You’d be surprised how little it takes to go from hating yourself to being genuinly impressed with your efforts. You’d be surprised how good it can feel to succeed, but also fail, once you know you are giving it 100% and can always work to improve and get past failure.
An example of this that happened just now is that I thought I was done with this post, so I was about to hit the Publish button then had the following dialog with myself in about 3 seconds:
- 100% Me: I should proof-read this… I’m not that good of a writer.
- 95% Me: Uggg, it’s good enough, just publish it, let’s go to bed… I’m tired.
- 100% Me: How ironic that I’m trying to cut-corners writing a “don’t cut corners post”… I have to proof this.
- 95% Me: Ok but skip the first 4 paragraphs, they were pretty good, no need to re-read them.
- 100% Me: Shut up, we are proofing the entire thing.
This happens all the time, every day to me. It’s not like my 95%-side disappeared, I’m just more aware of exactly what it is, what it wants and how I can combat it.
Why Should I Listen to You?
You don’t have to, you could your browser right now and ignore everything I wrote.
I really hope you don’t though…
If you got down to this section I have to imagine something written above resonated with you? Maybe you have been here too and have tips of your own that helped you? Maybe there is something I missed that is a big culprit for causing Almost-Achiever-Syndrome?
I’m just excited about a near leaf I’ve turned over and wanted to share it with folks if it helps. I feel like this has been the source of so much frustration and annoyance in my life since god-knows-how-long and now that I’m finally aware of it, and actively trying to change it things have been noticably more enjoyable for me. I hope they can be for you as well.
I would love to hear any comments, feedback, etc. on the topic. I know there are people out there, reading this, that are smarter and more qualified than I am that might have some excellent tips or comments to share.
Mon, Jul 21, 2008
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