From the course: Administrative Professional Tips

Pursuing excellence

From the course: Administrative Professional Tips

Pursuing excellence

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- I have a confession to make. I used to suffer from perfectionism. When I was exhibiting these tendencies, I would set very high, often unrealistic requirements for myself. I feared failure and I would often procrastinate. When I didn't achieve my set expectations, it resulted in a critical self-evaluation. Basically, when I worked on a task, it was never good enough in my eye. Talking to many administrative support professionals throughout the years, I have found that many of us suffer from perfectionism at various degrees. We want to know that people are receiving quality outputs and never have to question the work that we produce. That's admirable but perfectionism is not the way to achieve this. Instead, I have found that the pursuit of excellence is a much more productive way to go about your work. By attempting to exceed expectations, instead of trying to do everything perfectly, we have a much more realistic target to reach. We put much less pressure on ourselves, feel a greater sense of accomplishment, and are less critical of what we produce. Here are some ways to pursue excellence in everything that you do. Create an achievable vision and strategy for the task at hand. When you specifically plan your work with a starting point and definite ending, that leaves less room to continue to tweak things endlessly. Otherwise, your work gets derailed by constant edits and finishing touches. A clear execution, deadline, and what the finished product should look like helps to avoid the perfection trap. Remain flexible. When you become rigid in your plans and ideas of how something should be, you're setting yourself up for failure. Things don't always work out the way we plan. When that happens, go to an alternate plan without emotionally falling completely apart. The ability to remain adaptable is a skill that helps you excel in your leadership capabilities. You will be the type of person people want to work with. Be open to learning. With each challenge and even successes, come valuable education. Don't dwell on your past mistakes in a way that is not productive. Don't assign blame to yourself and others on why things didn't work out the way that you planned. Instead, in everything that you do, celebrate your successes. Learn from the missteps and use each one of them to propel you forward in a more confident and positive way. Perfectionism can lead to self sabotage. Instead, make the choice to pursue excellence. This is a healthy way to approach your work in both your professional and personal life. You will be able to improve your skills and improve the quality of your life. Make a commitment today to not only do this for yourself but to be part of creating a culture of excellence wherever you find yourself. The great thing about the pursuit of excellence is that often, it is quite contagious and you will find others emulating the things that you do.

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