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Bob’s Best Work Advice
Target 70%
“You’re wasting thirty percent, Donna,” stated Bob, shocking me to the core. I was finally getting advice now that I should have sought out long ago.
Even as a small child, I’d always been an overachiever. It wasn’t enough for me to do things; I had to overdo everything. If something I was working on wasn’t one hundred percent faultless, it would gnaw at me until I’d go back, toiling on it until it was up to snuff. I always strove for perfection.
This would sometimes backfire. Trying to make something perfect, could end up ruining the whole thing. Tightening a bolt a bit more while assembling furniture, sometimes snapped it off completely. Baking a cake a little longer to maximize goodness, might actually char it. And so on . . .
As I grew older, I read many accounts of people just like me, most of whom considered being an overachiever kind of a curse. After all, it turns out nobody likes an overachiever. They even hate themselves some days. These competitive types would kick themselves for spending all of their time in college striving to always get an A plus, instead of enjoying university life a bit more and settling for an A, or heaven forbid, even a B once in a while. Instead of being happy about successes, they were always nervous and stressed, worried about getting top marks on the next essay. And then…
