It Sucks To Go Backwards

When a speed skater or skier shaves a full second off of their personal best time - or a football player scores a new high in season touchdowns - or a baseball player has a home-run record season - or a hockey player scores 50+ goals in a season, will any of them be satisfied with a lower performance in future?

What happens when you discover delicious food in non-franchised restaurants or experience a fabulous stay in an outstanding boutique hotel? It's hard to eat at same-old, same-old franchise restaurants or cookie-cutter hotel rooms. Discovering a great bottle of wine or an outstanding beer makes it difficult to buy everyday ordinary brands once you've tasted something so much better.

Once you set a new standard in your life, you realize what you are capable of. This happens too with sales people. Once they hit a great month they set a new standard. And if they don't set the standard themselves, their bosses will do it for them.

If you don't honestly put a great deal of effort into improving your work performance, then you're, at best, an ordinary performer: average, mediocre. You probably complain about your job, make excuses for your results in life and settle for what you get instead of setting a standard for what you could have.

It's people like you who hold your organization back from "greatness." Sorry, but you will never be part of a "great" organization if you're not willing to work for it. Greatness doesn't happen by accident. Greatness is achieved when all members of the organization are pulling their weight. Great organizations get rid of the dead-weight holding them back. It's how they're able to become "great" organizations.

Once you raise your standards, those new standards begin to seep into every other area of your life: relationships, investments, parenting, vacations, etc. It sucks to go backwards. You can never successfully downgrade your standards. Once you get a taste of something great, it's hard to enjoy mediocre ever again.
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Attitude w/ ATTITUDE by Kevin Burns - Corporate Attitude/Culture Strategist

Creator of the 90-Day Strategy to Greatness Culture


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