The Pursuit of Excellence by Olivia Petter

Excellence means different things to different people. To a corporate executive, it could be delivering a presentation without stumbling over your words. To a parent, it might be about raising healthy, happy children. To a barista, it’s producing the perfect amount of foam on a cappuccino. 

But how exactly do you quantify that? Is it about getting a particular result or hitting a specific goal? Or is it about being better than someone else, or most people? Is it about caring deeply? Or doing the best that you can? Can anyone ever let that be enough? These answers are complex, because excellence is inherently subjective, even if we’re often told otherwise.

Let’s start by going back to basics. According to The Collins Dictionary, “excellence” is best explained as follows: “If someone or something has the quality of excellence, they are extremely good in some way”. Synonyms include “superiority”, “perfection”, “supremacy”, “greatness”, and “distinction”. In other words, it means doing something in the best way possible, or at least in a manner that means you stand out doing it. But none of that really gets to the bottom of what we’re talking about. Because in professional circles, we don’t simply want to think of ourselves as excellent. Other people need to think it too, which means we need to know what it takes to get there and achieve the most we possibly can in whatever field we work in.

Developing psychological flexibility

“One of the most consistent qualities among people who pursue challenging goals is what we call “psychological flexibility,” says Jaimie Tapper, Organisational and Coaching Psychologist, and Head of Performance Coaching and Development at the Royal Ballet. “When we look at people who effectively pursue challenging work or personal targets, they have the ability to move towards things that matter to them, even while experiencing uncomfortable and unhelpful thoughts and feelings.” In practice, this means learning to work with discomfort instead of avoiding it. “The great thing about this finding is that it flips the belief that we need to be comfortable and confident to effectively pursue meaningful and challenging goals,” she adds.

In these instances, the pursuit of excellence is about learning to harness your mind so that you can detach from thoughts and feelings that may be holding you back. In Tapper’s work with dancers, she encourages them to embrace the discomfort and uncertainty they might be feeling. “By attempting to shield ourselves from challenge, risk and stress, we may actually hamper healthy learning and growth,” she explains. “This isn’t to say we should be willing to accept any level of discomfort in service to our goals, but that this needs to be thoughtfully calibrated to maximise growth, while minimising adverse outcomes.”

Going beyond the ordinary

A lot of what makes someone excellent at work often comes down to going a step further than what’s expected. It’s the small, consistent extras that make someone stand out, says Dr Gillian Bond, a chartered occupational psychologist at the British Psychological society. “A personal shopper who studies a client’s life, personality and style to achieve results. Or customer service operators who develop relationships while solving a problem, giving customers advice and guidance on other related topics, promoting customer excellence in their business as they go along with each unique customer conversation.”

Of course, excellence is not the same as perfection. “Waiting for perfection is a losing game, because perfection doesn’t exist, especially in relation to ourselves,” says Mihaela Berciu, leadership advisor to CEOs and founders. “This isn’t about adopting a ‘tech mindset’ as much as it is about trusting yourself: trusting your instincts to know when it’s time to press ‘send’ to speak up, or to listen. Often, waiting for perfection is simply fear in disguise, being fear of being judged, fear of failing, fear of succeeding, even fear of progress.

“The key to overcoming this is to confront that fear head on,” she notes. “Acknowledge it, release it, and act. Chances are, you’ve been ready to take that step several iterations ago.” 

Aspiring to create excellence

Part of what makes excellence aspirational is its synonymity with effortlessness. It’s about the ease at which we can do something and convey that to other people, giving the impression that it’s natural to us and therefore more worthy of being celebrated. “Ease is something we, as human beings, instinctively strive for,” says Berciu. “When you watch a world-class athlete or a great performer, you might think, I could do that, because they make it look effortless.”

While doing things quickly can occasionally be something to strive towards, particularly in the workplace where deadlines must be met, it can often lead to rushed results because other factors, like quality, have been compromised. Hence why it’s important to also distinguish excellence from so-called ‘compression culture’. “In simple terms, excellence is about doing things in the best way we possibly can, and compression culture is, about doing things as quickly and efficiently as possible,” explains Dr Jo Perkins, registered psychologist at the British Psychological Society. “The way excellence can fit within compression culture is by applying excellence to process, prioritisation, people, environment, decision making, being able to judge risk and know when depth is required.”

When striving becomes stress

Striving without pause can also tip into stress—one of the biggest barriers to excellence. A 2021 study linked higher stress levels to lower productivity, and the consequences extend beyond performance.  “If training people in new skills is rushed, or if people don’t have time to integrate the learning then this can cause worry,” says Dr Bond. “If procedures are cut short or people take shortcuts, errors and safety risks at work rise,” warns Dr Bond. Stress not only erodes effectiveness, it undermines wellbeing.

But how do any of us really apply these lessons in real life? Tapper argues it starts with addressing your relationship with confidence. Or what she terms, your “perceived lack of confidence”, one of her focus areas when working with dancers at The Royal Ballet. “People often believe that if they can’t summon confidence on cue, they have a problem,” she says. “Like all other feelings, confidence is uncontrollable and fleeting.”

Practicing courage builds confidence

The good news, Tapper says, is that performing confidence is a skill we can all build, with or without the feeling. “I like to introduce the idea of practicing courage, because it acknowledges that what we’re trying to do is hard, that there is some risk in the striving, and it requires us to be willing to experience risk and discomfort in the service of a meaningful goal.”

In Tapper’s experience, high achieving people often use the gap between where they are and where they want to be as fuel. “That discomfort is not weakness–it’s what motivates them to consistently improve, pursue their best work, and create something more meaningful that they can take pride in.”

Perhaps then, the most universal truth about excellence is this: the courage to keep reaching beyond what feels comfortable–again and again. If that’s not excellence in action, we’re not sure what is.

Olivia Petter is an award-winning journalist, author and broadcaster based in London. Alongside developing her career in journalism, she enjoys running, cats, and writing about herself in the third person. Listen to her podcast Love Lives and read her debut novel Gold Rush.