Closure – 99 Percent Is Not Done.
Posted 29th July 2009 at 01:23 PM by David McKee
Tags accomplishment, achievement, closure, completeness, success
One of the areas that both Master Achievers, and those who are working to become a Master Achiever struggle with, is the area of closure. Closure is when a task, goal, or project is completed – both in time and in the mind of the one who is performing it. It seems like a simple concept, but has been famously said before; the devil is in the details.
There are two extremes that a Master Achiever must avoid when setting about to perform a task or a goal – the first, the lazy mans excuse: “It’s 99 percent done, that’s good enough…”
No, if the job is not done, then you have not reached your stated objective – no matter how close it is, if you know in your heart that last little bit that should be completed to give a polished, professional result is not there – then you have failed in accomplishing the thing, at least to the most important person: you.
You see if you know in your heart that you have not really completed the task, then you will carry that with you, and the next time you have a task to do, you are more likely to subconsciously accept the notion of compromise. You are more likely to give up earlier because you have established that pattern. You are moving away from being a Master Achiever.
On the other hand, you can be a perfectionist – never fully believing that you are done, never completing the task because you keep tweaking. This is the perfectionist conundrum: “I just need to do one more thing…”
The perfectionist has gone too far into thinking that a task or goal needs more features, more polish, more bits of this or that, until too much time has gone by and the task or goal is no longer meaningful.
Both extremes are deadly to the Master Achiever because we all have times where we just feel like we have worked so hard that we cannot do another thing and want to throw in the towel, or we obsess over some minor thing and cannot seem to say “IT IS TRULY DONE!”
This requires balance, and takes practice and a good partner or mentor who can tell you that you are being lazy or you are obsessing over something. Closure is when, in our own minds and hearts we know we have done our best, given our all, and have now closed the book on some task or project so we can move on to the next one.
And now, this post is done!
There are two extremes that a Master Achiever must avoid when setting about to perform a task or a goal – the first, the lazy mans excuse: “It’s 99 percent done, that’s good enough…”
No, if the job is not done, then you have not reached your stated objective – no matter how close it is, if you know in your heart that last little bit that should be completed to give a polished, professional result is not there – then you have failed in accomplishing the thing, at least to the most important person: you.
You see if you know in your heart that you have not really completed the task, then you will carry that with you, and the next time you have a task to do, you are more likely to subconsciously accept the notion of compromise. You are more likely to give up earlier because you have established that pattern. You are moving away from being a Master Achiever.
On the other hand, you can be a perfectionist – never fully believing that you are done, never completing the task because you keep tweaking. This is the perfectionist conundrum: “I just need to do one more thing…”
The perfectionist has gone too far into thinking that a task or goal needs more features, more polish, more bits of this or that, until too much time has gone by and the task or goal is no longer meaningful.
Both extremes are deadly to the Master Achiever because we all have times where we just feel like we have worked so hard that we cannot do another thing and want to throw in the towel, or we obsess over some minor thing and cannot seem to say “IT IS TRULY DONE!”
This requires balance, and takes practice and a good partner or mentor who can tell you that you are being lazy or you are obsessing over something. Closure is when, in our own minds and hearts we know we have done our best, given our all, and have now closed the book on some task or project so we can move on to the next one.
And now, this post is done!
Total Comments 0
