If you were to enter a room full of the most excellent people in the world, regardless of what their field of excellence is, they would all have key things in common. One of those key things that they would all have in common is that their sense of self-esteem is fed by the competence, substance, care, excellence and quality of what they create or do. To half ass something is to do it with little effort or care. People who are excellent, never half ass anything they do, no matter what it is and no matter if it something they feel minimal motivation to do. Either they give it their best or they don’t do it at all. And the sense of pride they feel as a result, is a form of self-esteem that no one can give to them and no one can take away from them.
People who derive a sense of self-esteem from the pride they feel in never half-assing anything tend to be very successful. Successful people invest their energy into whatever they decide to do or create to the degree that the outcome becomes a reflection of them. They can’t feel good about themselves if they do something just good enough to get by. And therefore, the competence, substance, care, excellence and quality of what they create or do matters more to them than anything. And they do not have to be motivated to put forth that effort to produce excellence.
For example, a truly excellent pastry chef’s sense of self-esteem is derived by just how perfect their sugar work or chocolate tempering is. It would not matter whether you paid him thousands to do a pastry or nothing at all, he would own his craft and the excellence of his craft and the energy he dedicates to his craft to the degree that the result (pastry) would be the same.
For another example, if you took a professional athlete with this character trait and asked him or her to clean a bathroom, if he or she decided to clean it, he or she would not half-ass the cleaning job. Instead, he or she would give it their absolute best, their 100% and clean it impeccably. What did they get out of doing this? The unshakable boost to his or her self-esteem that competence, care and producing an outcome of substance, excellence and quality gives. Essentially, they are fed energy by anything that they do because of this.
Of course many of you are hearing this and feeling resistance within yourself. There are plenty of shadows that make a person resistant to this idea. For example, some people think that self-esteem should have nothing to do with what you do. Some people want to be loved for who they are, not what they do and so this idea just seems like one step closer to having to perform for love. Some people are not doing what they really want to be doing so they have no motive to do what they don’t want to do well. Some people feel that if they put their 100% into something and the result still fell short of other people’s expectations or their own expectations, it would be a confirmation of their worthlessness; and therefore that it is safer to just never give 100% so they can always say “I could have”. Some people feel like nothing will work out no matter how much effort they put into something and so it’s just asking for worse disappointment. Ask yourself, why does the idea of putting 100% into what I do if I say yes to doing it (no matter what it is) bother me? Why does the idea of deriving my self-esteem from competence, substance, care, excellence and quality bother me? Consider that your answer to these questions is revealing something that is in the way of your personal success and self-esteem.
Look at your life. Do you take pride in what you do? Are you putting effort and care into the things that you do so as to make the outcome excellent or of quality? If not, why? What things are you half-assing? Why are you half-assing them? Why are they not worth the effort?
If you want unshakable self-esteem, you must take pride in what you do. And if you want to be truly successful, you must take pride in anything that you decide to do. So many people do not give the things they do in the physical their 100%. So many more are picky and choosy relative to the things they will give 100% to and the things where they will do just enough to get by. Not only is this a waste of personal energy, it is also a slippery slope into the habit of half-assing. Vibrationally speaking, if you are not committed to doing everything you choose to do well, it will be hard to do anything well. To the opposite, if you are committed to doing everything well, you become a person who can do anything well. When you half-ass, you will slip into the space of “less than 100% effort is ok for me”. You slip into the existence and vibrational space of ‘good enough’. And this will for sure make your life ‘just good enough’. You will find yourself in just good enough relationships, just good enough jobs, a just good enough house and surrounded by people who also do just enough, including just enough relative to you. Your quality of life will slip because you have indicated through your thoughts, words and actions that quality does not matter to you. You’re also going to lose relationships and jobs because to half-ass is to say “I’m fine doing the bare minimum and calling it done and leaving other people who care more to pick up the pieces”. When you half-ass things, you are saying to the universe: I am worthy of half-assing and others are worthy of me half-assing. That is not loving to yourself or to them. To commit is to put all of your energy into a thing. You cannot create a good life if you don’t commit to the elements of your life. Half-assing is the opposite of committing. Unfortunately this means that if you become ok with half-assing, you will one day wake up and wonder why your life sucks.
When it comes to half-assing, you have to keep your ear out for the word try. In that room full of highly excellent and successful people, you aren’t going to hear that word being said. When you say “I’m going to try” you’re already giving yourself an out. You’ve entered failure into a situation where it doesn’t inherently exist. It also means there is a big part of you that is either un-committed to making it happen no matter what or is already convinced that it isn’t going to happen. You can’t think that way and be committed at the same time. What is your excuse for why something is not happening? What are the ways that you are not actually doing what you say you are trying to do? Try is an illusion in the universe at large. Notice how often you say try. Eliminate try from your vocabulary and mentality. There is only do and do not. Your excuses are justifications for having not done.
If you want unshakable self-esteem, take pride in every single thing you decide to do from making your bed to brushing your teeth to what you buy to what you eat to every work-related task to caring for your appearance to having that conversation to writing that e-mail to cleaning those dishes to staying close to that person etc. If you want to learn a great hack for doing this, watch my video titled: Priceless Motivation Tip. And if you can’t, you have to face why you can’t. It may just indicate that a change must be made to what you’re doing with your personal energy and therefore life.
It does better things for your self-esteem and success to consciously decide not to do a task than to half ass it. It’s better to say no than to say yes but not act like it is a hell yes. To grasp this concept, watch the movie Office Space. It’s hilarious. It is also a perfect example of half-assing. However the fact that so many people relate to the characters in that movie is a rather sad commentary regarding how many people are choosing to do things that they don’t have any intrinsic motivation to do.
It is not possible to put your 100% into something and see no improvement. If you stop half-assing anything and take pride in anything you do, you will see improvement in your relationships, personal growth, finances, health, success etc. You can only have a truly great life if you really invest in life and everything you do. You can only feel truly great about your life if you take pride in everything you do.
