The Gap Between

” All growth depends upon activity. There is no development physically or intellectually without effort, and effort means work.”

     –     Calvin Coolidge (1872 – 1933), 30th President of these United States 

The gap in between the two is where growth occurs.

The Middle of The Three is a pretty decent basketballer.  In fact, his favorite t-shirt says, “Grammar is important, but basketball is importanter.”  Therein lies one of the challenges.  As naturally as basketball comes, he works hard at the gap between what he can do, and what he could do.  Not, perhaps, as hard as Dad would like him to work, but pretty diligent.  School, on the other hand, is an area that he’d prefer to stop just short of what he can do, and somewhere in the neighborhood of what he must do to get by.  To bridge the gap, a choice must be made.  How much work and effort are we willing to take on?

For us in our workaday lives, the same choice exists.  A gifted presenter who is often short on preparation will have to settle for less than if they were to fill the gap.  A brilliant analyst who is most comfortable with facts and data will only maximize their outputs when they can understand the environment and conditions wherein the data and analytics must be applied.

Madonna once sang that “we are living in a material world,” but we should note that it is not an empirical world.

The gap between what we can do and what we could do is, sometimes, definable in finite terms.  More often that not, however, it’s likely that putting in the effort and work on those things that exist in the gap helps close the gap.  The key is to take action, and put in concerted, focused effort on the gap between what we can, and ultimately could do.

As for all you should do…  “Should” is a dangerous word, especially if it is laid out there by someone else.  Ultimately, what we should do, depending on who’s saying what that might be, can inform or limit the movement towards what we could do.  If our “should do” is work every weekend, miss concerts, movies and ballgames (either those of our kids or those that we’d love to see, just as fans), it is more than likely misaligned with our “could do.”  It can become a source of guilt, feelings of defeat and emptiness.  “Perfect” is, more often than not, the enemy of “good enough.”

Difference makers grow every day — by taking action, and putting in the effort and work