Good Enough is Neither Good Nor Enough

I ran again this morning. And I fell again. Hard. Not the “oops I tripped” kind of fall, but the ungraceful “oh shit” down-on-my knees-and-ripped my-leggings-and-skinned-my-hands kind of fall.

It’s not the first time this has happened. My parents did not grace me with any sort of—well—grace; thus, if there is a curb, a dip, an edge, or a hole, I’m at least tripping, if not falling, and throwing my phone across the concrete.

When I fell this morning, it was about five minutes into the run on the sidewalk of Gallivan Street. When I landed, I looked up to see Oliver turned around, looking at me with a quizzical angle of his head. Oliver, my shelter-rescued dog, loves me. I am his person, and he is mine (yes, I treat him like a person). So I expected him to come to my rescue, whining and licking me. Instead, though, he stood there looking back at me, and then he turned to look ahead, as if, “Well, get up. You’re coming right?”

“Thanks Dude,” I mumbled.

But as I hobbled down Gallivan with ripped leggings, knee bleeding, and phone cracked, I laughed to myself.

He is definitely MY dog. Because he knew I would keep going. I’m not hobbling home five minutes into a run. It’s a gorgeous day, I had planned on a run, so I’m going to finish my route, damn it. Because when I start something, I’m going to see it through. There’s no stopping me.

I got in an argument with a friend recently. I questioned why he was acting a certain way toward me, and I told him my honest reaction to how it made me feel.

“Lindsay, you push and you push and you push,” he stated. “It’s never good enough for you.”

Crap. Was that really how he felt? Was I pushing him? Am I never content? Why am I not okay with “good enough”?

I’ve been sitting on this conversation for a few days now, recycling the words and replaying the conversation, wondering if there could have been a better outcome.

His stating that I was pushing him implies that I can never be content. Initially I took that as an insult. If I’m never content, then I must not be grateful. And if I’m not grateful, then I’m selfish. Thus, I translated his saying I’m “pushing” as my being selfish.

However, the more I roll these words over my tongue and in my brain, I realize that wasn’t the case. I wasn’t being selfish; instead, I could see his potential, and I wasn’t okay with him not living up to that. I was pushing him to see what could be, and he was so caught up in what is that he couldn’t make that leap for himself.

Good enough is neither good nor enough. In my opinion, the phrase “good enough” shouldn’t exist, as it implies settling for something that actually isn’t good. It asks you to be okay with complacency, what is instead of what could be. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear writes:

“On any given day, you may struggle with your habits because you’re too busy or too tired or too overwhelmed or hundreds of other reasons. Over the long run, the real reason you fail to stick with habits is that your self-image gets in the way. This is why you can’t get too attached to one version of your identity.

Progress requires unlearning. Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.”

As I look toward the future for myself, my family, and my company, I’m on a daily quest to unlearn. I would venture to say that most entrepreneurs think this way. Progress requires pushing, transforming, questioning. So what I believed and thought yesterday may not be what I believe and think today.

Some may say that means I’m not firm in my convictions. My answer to them? You are correct. In my mind, being set in my ways hinders progress. In my mind, being “good enough” is quite possibly the worst outcome.

So I will continue to run, and I will continue to push myself and everyone around me: my family, my teammates at TealHaus and Tantrum, my clients, and my friends. Together, we will unlearn and learn again, always working to be better.

In the end, I may have a few scraped knees, but I’ll never wonder if it was worth the fall.