Video Post: Excellence, not perfection

In which you can tell I’m really excited, because a. my hair is still wet (and my face still red, apparently) from the shower I got out of 20 minutes before, and b. I’m waving my hands around like some kind of terrible cheerleader. I also mention time travel and Aretha Franklin. Check it out, and ignore my cats in the background:

Mentioned:

Sandi and her customer love hours – during the month of February, she gave away 28 hours of coaching in honor of the Customer Love challenge. Pretty amazing, right?! Go check her out, for serious.

(Also, I realized when I looked it up after recording this that “deva” is in fact pronounced “day-va” and not “diva”. Oh well. Transcript under the cut.)

Transcript:

Hi guys! This is Michelle, with Wicked Whimsy, and I wanted to make a little video to talk to you about this great thing that happened yesterday. Or it was yesterday for me, it’s probably not yesterday for you ’cause I don’t know when this is going to go up on the blog. Which, if you think about it, is pretty neat, ’cause it’s almost like time travel. Like, (waves) “Hello, readers of the future!” But…(laughing)…that’s not the point!

The point is that yesterday – for me, again – the 26th of February – I had this call, I did a Customer Love call with Sandi of DevaCoach. Deva like Sanskrit, not like Aretha Franklin. And…she is amaaazing!

And one of the things that we talked about, is that I was talking about how I sometimes have problems with perfectionism, I want everything to be perfection, especially if it’s a project that I gave myself and not a project somebody else gave me. ‘Cause if it’s a project I gave myself, the standards are automatically set impossible high. And I was talking to her about that and she goes “Well, tell me if this doesn’t resonate with you, but what I’m hearing when you talk is ‘excellence’.”

And I was just like (making astonished face), it was like ding! lightbulb! (waving hand above head) and it was just like wow! That’s something I’ve been thinking on since that happened 24 hours ago. It’s just like, oh my god, that’s such a big shift for me, and it feels so good because when you’re trying to reach perfection – whether you acknowledge or not that you’re trying to reach perfection – when you’re trying to reach perfection, you’re never gonna get there. No matter how hard you try, no matter how good you do, you are never going to reach perfection because it doesn’t exist. It’s not – it doesn’t exist. Perfection is not something that happens. It’s something that’s an impossible ideal to – that’s way up here (waves hand way above head) and you’re never gonna reach it. Especially not me, ’cause you know, I’m like 5′ 2″.

But excellence! Excellence is something that you can reach for.  And that you can reach. Excellence is something that you can strive for, and that you can reach, and it’s attainable. And I think that’s really really important when you’re striving for something, is to make sure it’s attainable. Because if you’re striving for something that’s not attainable, then you’re never going to get the satisfaction of reaching that goal. And it’s just going to frustrate you and drag you down and make you hurt and angry.

But! You can strive for excellence and you can reach excellence. This was just like, like I said sort of an epiphany for me. So…I know that I’m not the only one with problems like that, and I thought I would share that. I’m even thinking I’m going to do a poster…or something…and hang it up above my desk by the computer where I work all day that says “Excellence, not perfection.” Just to remind myself that I’m striving for excellence, I’m not striving for a completely unattainable ideal. Which to me is super motivating.

That’s really all I wanted to say! So I hope you’re all having a good day in the future and I hope that it…makes you as happy as it did me. Thanks. (blows kiss) Bye bye!

(Don’t shoot me for saying “like” so much. This was unscripted, all right?!)

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