In the history of relationships – business, romantic, family, or self – that relationship has NEVER been successful by expecting 100% of everything 100% of the time.
100% is a fine goal, it’s a great thing to put up on a poster and to tell your teacher, your employees, and the world that you are aiming for.
Just as long as you realize and really know, that Expecting 100% of anything from anyone is at best bullshit. And potentially it’s just plain destructive.
Expecting 100% is just repeating a story that you’ve seen in movies and read in books and heard from your friend’s uncle’s sister’s best friend. [tip: keep your eyes open for Enemies of Greatness]
I was awake at 4 in the morning and I’m writing this at 4:50am. Part of my daily routine is to get up before sunrise so that I can stretch my joints, exercise my brain, and work my body – so that I can grow my business and my brain.
Which all sounds great, right?
Except I’ll convince myself I’m too sore to get out of bed tomorrow morning on time or I’ll binge on a new book the night before and not get my 8 hours of sleep in and my day will be thrown off or because my family and I are celebrating being alive and were up to late. Whatever.
Point is, I won’t stick to this schedule 100% of the time – no matter how great my schedule makes me feel.
Do you know how demoralizing that can feel if your expectations are “I will get out of bed every day by 4am” only to find that you’ve slept in till 7am for half of the week already?
Of course you do. Because if you have EVER set a goal in your life you’ve failed to reach a part of it.
Notice that, however – “failed to reach a part of it”.
You’ve set yourself up for failure because YOU decided that you have to be 100% perfect, 100% of the time. Complete compliance with a system isn’t sustainable. You’re more likely to collapse under that pressure before you achieve that goal.
That world class athlete practises because they don’t run the mile quick enough every time, that amazing manager doesn’t get complete productivity out of his engaged, motivated workforce all the time, and that #1 salesperson? They do not close every deal, they’re just out there presenting enough offers that enough close to push them over the top.
Because here’s the thing, really the trick of it all:
If you set a goal for 100%, but hit 80% often enough, you will do amazing, incredible, unimaginable things. If you achieve 100% three times in a row, but then miss that goal the fourth through 50th time, at some point you’ll give up. To bad you didn’t know that #51 was fucking GOLD.
No one can go through everyday thinking “Day 217. I was supposed to collect 16 bags of recycling. Instead I only collected 15. I fucking failed. Again.”
Holding yourself to 100% efficacy or a 100% win rate leads to discouragement, which leads to just giving the fuck up.
However, if you believe: “80% efficiency is good. I shoot for 100%, but I’d be satisfied with 80%”, then you blow right through the first 43 failures, fuckups, let downs, and missed marks. You get to your epic wins and amazing new highs.
By expecting 100% you set a trap for yourself, your partner, your employees, your kids. If you don’t get 100% then you are disappointed. You begin building the mind castle of “I’m never successful. That person never gives enough. My employees never do enough.”
You begin to find more reasons why people around you are failing you or why you’re failing yourself. Reason upon reason are stacked up, creating towering walls of created mental logic that EVERYONE IS A FUCK UP.
So why bother? Fuck ‘em. Fuck this new business. Give up that weight loss you were striving towards. To hell with the employees that you interviewed, hired, trained, and trusted. Accept you’ll never close on another fix and flip.
Right?
No, not right.
The enemy of success is 100%.
When I was building the hostel business, I knew I could get 5-star reviews from guests pretty consistently. I knew how to put the tired group from Indonesia at ease when I was checking them in and how to get the shy solo traveler to join us in the free nightly events we held. The hostel was clean, the interactions crisp and engaging, check in a breeze, the vibe was *on*. When I went to open location #2, I hired, trained, and trusted the right person [link: IIT Method for finding the “right” person].
And I expected everything to remain the same. I expected amazing reviews, I expected the credit card batches to be closed by a certain time, the event’s board updated, and the hallways to get their seasonal-refresh coat of paint done within a certain amount of time.
Which of course didn’t happen.
Or rather, it did happen, just not in the time frame or way or style I expected.
I had a choice to make – I either run one property and be proud that it is NUMBER 1 in all aspects in all areas all the time because I can do it best myself.
Or I grow my business, creating more opportunity for my team and more success for myself.
I didn’t want to just have that one location, I saw a connected group of boutique poshtel’s across the country ushering in a new era of low cost, social, upscale shared accommodations.
So I stopped expecting 100% and realized that if I got 92% output from the people I had hired to run that first property that would still be amazing. My reviews were still stellar, guests were happy, the property was clean.
So yeah, 92% was pretty great. And when I started LOOKING for 92%, I was able to focus on opening our next location. It took a HUGE weight off my mental shoulders not worrying about PERFECTION. Instead I was focused on our key metrics and indicators [Stay Outta the Weeds: Key Metrics and Indicators] to see that the business was heading in the right direction.
My team wasn’t stressed out all the time worrying if they were, minute-by-minute doing exactly this or that. They were able to respond to the needs of the guests and location as they came up, keeping our key indicators in sight and therefore taking care of our business.
Expecting your kids to have all straight A+ or expecting your partner
If you’re in school right now, will straight top marks be the best thing for your life? Or will good or great marks accomplish a similar goal, while allowing you to spend time learning whether or not you like a new sport, exploring new friendships, reading books. You only have this time in your life once – take learning seriously, absolutely. But also invest some of your youth in experiences, in exploration of the world and yourself.
Sure, maybe you set your GOAL at 100%, but you have to know – really believe – that some other percentage is acceptable.
No, not just acceptable. That it is GOOD. That it is AWESOME.
Another word for 100% is always.
Too often when you hear things like “I always wake up at 5am to practice my yoga and then meditate for an hour” or “I always close on three houses per month” or whatever.
What you are ACTUALLY hearing is either hyperbole [defined: exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally] or aspirational – you are NOT hearing the TRUTH. I would argue that it actually borders on just an ego driven, chest thumping proclamation instead.
Sure, are there people in the world who DO wake up at 4am to practice yoga EVERY day? Yep! And they live a life focused on just that one thing on an ashram in southeast asia. You can have that too, if that’s all you want in life.
But if you want more, if you want a thriving personal life, a growing business, a happy family, an engaged team, you need to throw out the enemy of progress and peace – throw the rigid expectation of 100% right out the fucking door.