I’m not good enough for the work I’m currently doing.
I never can be.
Why?
Because the same moment I become ‘good enough’ is the moment I become lazy.
Your work should always challenge you.
For the longest time, I didn’t find my work particularly challenging. It may have been time consuming, but the learning curve or the level of difficulty involved didn’t affect me.
And because I didn’t feel challenged, I had no reason to learn more. I had no reason to improve my skills. I began to stagnate.
Like quiescent water, I remained that way for the better part of a year: comfortable and unmoving.
Deteriorating.
Then everything changed.
In the past two months, I acquired a new client. What they asked was unlike anything I had done before. The work interested me, challenged me. Most of all, it scared me.
For the first time in nearly a year, I didn’t immediately know how to finish the work. I set to researching the job. I spent hours in front of a screen with a notebook in hand, scribbling note after note. When I began to write, the words poured out of me, propelled by the knowledge I’d gained. The final product was of a never-before-seen level of quality.
Since then, my ‘luck’ has blossomed.
But it’s not luck. Not really. If I had lamented my lack of clients, the reason lay not in the availability of work but in my willingness to seek it out. I had grown comfortable, and comfort breeds complacency.
I have been fortunate enough to acquire several new clients, each one requesting work more difficult and challenging than the last. I have danced around complex topics, gone without sleep, and approached coffee like ambrosia.
But I haven’t been bored. I haven’t been lazy.
And I’ve never enjoyed my work more.
That’s the reason why I can never be good enough, why I don’t want to be good enough. I want to always challenge myself and push my skills ever higher.
And so should you.