👩🏻🍳 Chef’s Kiss Perfection
Did you accept my challenge last week and lower the bar? If you still need a little more motivation don’t worry, I’ve got you.
Because lowering the bar is scary.
The concept of lowering your standards… of performing worse? How? But more importantly… Why?!
I hear you. Oh boy do I hear you. But give me until the end of this to try and motivate you in another direction. Because what if a lower bar wasn’t ‘worse’ but instead, absolute chef’s kiss perfection within your capacity.
I took an online workout class last week and we hit that peak of class when they’re trying to push you, and the coach is counting down reps the normal way
5… 4… 3… 2… 1
Then we hit an extra tough section and the count down goes like this:
5… 4… 3… 2… 2… 2… 2… 2… 2… 1
I mean…!??! It is hard to overstate how annoyed I was at this sneaky trainer trick. After class ended and I fumed about it to my friends, I realized that I play a very similar sneaky trick on myself — and I’m willing to bet that you, as a small business owner, do too.
When we refuse to lower the bar, we play like that sneaky trainer, adding a little more, and a little more, so that success keeps getting harder to achieve.
But the trouble with this type of overachieving is right there in the name — overachieving. We keep expecting our minds and bodies to give us more and more but the trouble is everything beyond our capacity loses quality. In that workout class, those first five reps were solid, but the surprise five? Not great.
So my question to you is, how long do you want your business to feel inspiring and motivating?
If the answer is, indefinitely, then lowering the bar will be the only way to get there. Because yes, lowering the bar can be scary, but not lowering the bar can become even scarier. The longer you overachieve, the harder it can be to stop, and the more disruptive and challenging the fallout will be.
Inside your capacity you are absolute magic. You are delivering on that special thing that you alone are so uniquely great at. You are Michael Jordan in 1991. You are Celine Dion with a microphone. Quit letting yourself think that that isn’t enough.
So once more with feeling — what bar will you lower this week? Because you’re doing a lot and you deserve to breathe and enjoy
