Pressing Beyond “Good Enough”

By Jerry LoCoco

There are those that live contently on the fringe of existence, satisfied to glide through life with just enough to get by. You can identify them by the fact that they show up to work two minutes before clock-in time, they rarely finish important projects, and anything they must “report” on is generally done using the Cliff Notes version of it. Their motto for all their daily effort is that it’s “good enough”.

I read a quote once that stated, “Ninety-nine percent is hard, but 100% is easy.” Why is that? Because you have left that one percent open for debate and we all know that human nature will jump at an escape route every chance it gets.

Good Enough vs. 100%: Tipping the Scales

I recently shared on the Yuma Entrepreneur Show’s “Motivational Monday” vlog about an experience I had in law school that taught me a valuable lesson about pushing past “good enough” to give that extra percent effort.

While my peers dived into their college careers, I took a different path for ten years. So, when it came time to finish my own education journey, I was feeling a bit behind the crowd. I had some serious catching up to do if I was going to make my dreams happen. I finally made it to law school and dug right into the grit of the aggressive coursework required. However, when I received my first semester grade in my Contracts class, I was less than impressed. In fact, I felt defeated – and downright angry. I had earned a “C+” and that was far from what I had hoped to achieve. I couldn’t let that happen again…

At the end of the final semester, the professor announced that we could access MVE practice exams to prepare for the final exam. The final would be based off these practice tests. There were seven exams and I plowed through six of them, which was not an easy feat. The six exams alone were over 12 hours of work! At this point, I felt I was adequately prepared (and, basically, sick of looking at the tests) and decided I was done.

However…

I remembered the frustration of that glaring “C+” from the first semester and gave myself a serious pep talk. Exhausted or not, I sat right back down and took that seventh practice test.

The next morning was the final exam. As I worked through the exam, my confidence began to rise. I knew this material! The test questions were similar to the ones on that seventh practice test. Remember – the test I almost bailed on? Exactly!

Long story short, I aced the test (huge fist bump here) and received an “A” in the class. Further boosting my exhilaration, two weeks later, I received a letter in the mail notifying me that I had received the CALI award for having the highest score in my law school class. We are talking about upwards of 150 students I had excelled above AFTER bombing it the previous semester with a “C+”.

It wasn’t that I was smarter than my classmates. Just showing up to class and turning in coursework was not what brought the results I desired. I knew exactly why I had succeeded. The extra effort is where the magic happened. It was that seventh, and last, test I pushed myself to take. That extra percent that I almost brushed off because I had felt the first six tests were “good enough”.

Now, go out there and give 100% and CRUSH it!

~Jerry

Yuma Entrepreneur Show: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3r5Fk0CojB14mGs4YV-dsw

Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/Yuma-Entrepreneur-Show-1006222742788467/