Excellence vs Discipline
It seems to me that no matter how much I chase both, I can achieve neither. It also starts to dawn on me that while not exclusive, excellence and discipline can often disrupt each other.
Had I been striving for excellence, this article wouldn’t have been published today. Instead, I would have started writing something on a bigger scale today, and then finished writing and published it tomorrow (or two days after, or maybe even three, excellence won’t be achieved either way).
However, I have a goal of posting an article everyday. So in this case I prioritize discipline over excellence. I would rather post something than post nothing. And in defense of that choice, I will say this: excellence can be achieved through discipline, but I don’t think that discipline can be achieved through excellence.
I could’ve gone for excellence, and only publish one or two (maybe three) articles a month. They could have (or not) been great, but either way I’d have given the articles more thought than I do now, but I would have never learned how to write consistently.
I do believe that the less time is spent on a work, the less its quality is. So these articles I write, could’ve been much greater had I not published them every day. However, when I write every day, I learn how to keep myself accountable and disciplined, while also slowly trying to reach for excellence.
The more I write the better my writing gets (same applies to anything you do). So I will both teach myself how to be disciplined about my work, and (eventually) how to produce work of good quality.
Now let’s flip the table. Let’s say I will only publish one or maybe two (best case, three) articles a month. Sure they will be of higher quality than anything I’m publishing right now. However, if I do that, I will never be able to produce that discipline and consistency.
Sometimes it’s an article a month, sometimes three. There’s no consistency, and no matter how much I keep doing this, unless I keep myself disciplined, I won’t achieve discipline through pursuing excellence.
Another point in favor of discipline over excellence is reflection. The more work you do, the more you have to reflect on. If I publish articles for a month straight, I will have thirty of my works to reflect on as compared to one or three. A lot more space for improvement can be seen.
Had I prioritized excellence, there would have been just as much space for improvement, however it would be much harder to find. The sheer volume of work produced by discipline offers much easier access to improvement. I believe that after a few months, I will look back on everything I’ve written and it won’t be hard to find space for improvement.
Strive for discipline and you will get closer to excellence. Strive for excellence and you will never achieve discipline.
