It’s the near end of the year. In addition to preparing for the Holidays, you are scrambling to make your numbers. For a small few, you’ve got it in the bag, you may even be putting a few orders in your desk drawer for a fast start in January. But for most, it’s a scramble, one that goes until 11:59 PM, December 31st. You are putting all the effort in, you may squeak by, but most will fall short.
This is a pattern, not just the end of the year, but quarter by quarter. You are working hard, management is impatient, but like you they are struggling to get by. Everyone is doing just good enough.
For some, you’re hitting quota. You’re not at the bottom of the rankings. Management isn’t breathing down your neck. By most measures, you’re doing fine.
But there may be an underlying feeling of discomfort. Most of us have aspirations to do much better, but we constantly seem to be scraping through. We know we can do more. We want to get more satisfaction from the jobs we are doing.
There’s a gap between what we are doing and what we want to achieve. And year after year, that gap seems to be widening. We may shift jobs to see if we can begin to close that gap, achieving our potential, but the gap is still there.
Our constant scrambling, usually focused on quarter and year-end is really not about that last final attempt to hit the numbers. It’s the result of hundreds of small choices made throughout the year.
Every time you came into a meeting unprepared. Every time you just followed the script. Every time you made excuses instead of taking ownership. Every time you went through the motions instead of performing with purpose. Those choices compound. And it takes a toll.
The scramble isn’t about the year end, the scramble is about a daily mindset problem that catches up with you at year and quarter-end.
Changing jobs won’t fix it. Neither will a better territory, a better product, or better leads. Because the gap isn’t about external circumstances. It’s about the space between your capabilities and your daily behaviors.
You’re capable of more. You know it. The discomfort you are feeling is the recognition, in the back of your mind, that you’re not performing to your potential. That you’re settling for ‘good enough’ when you could be excellent.
The longer you persist with being just good enough, the more the gap to achieve your potential widens. The gap is not measured by the numbers you hit, but that gnawing feeling in the back of your mind that you could be doing more.
Every year you spend at 80% of your potential, your skills atrophy slightly. Your habits calcify. Your competitors who are committed to excellence keep pulling further ahead. The market keeps raising expectations. Your customers keep demanding more.
Meanwhile, you’re running the same playbook, hoping for different results. Working hard but not growing. Busy but not improving. Scrambling but not thriving.
Three years from now, if nothing changes, where will you be? Still scrambling? Still making excuses about why this quarter was different? Still feeling that underlying discomfort that you’re capable of more?
But there is a different way. I see people breaking this pattern. It’s not easy, but somehow they have had a wake-up call. And it’s not through some sort of magic technique they read on LinkedIn, or a cure-all Prompt some guru gave them. But through a fundamental shift in mindset and behaviors.
Just yesterday, I had two conversations. Each was a very capable executive, each was beating their numbers. One had almost doubled the organizational performance in the past year. But something was eating at each of them, they thought there was more, they couldn’t define it or describe it. But they knew there was more. I asked, “What happened, what caused you to recognize it and start to change?” They each had different approaches. One had an “Aha” moment. The other had sat down with his team and just started asking a lot of questions, imagining “what could be.”
The people who aren’t scrambling at the end of the quarter or year? They make different choices every day. They brought purpose to their work. They stayed genuinely curious about their customers. They took ownership instead of making excuses. They committed to continuous improvement, not just hitting minimum standards.
They refused to settle for ‘good enough.’
And the result? They’re not just hitting their numbers. They’re exceeding them. They’re not just getting by. They’re thriving.
As this year ends and you’re making plans for next year, you have a choice to make.
You can keep doing what you’re doing. Keep settling for ‘good enough.’ Keep scrambling at quarter-end. Keep feeling that discomfort of not reaching your potential. And a year from now, you’ll be right back here, reading another article about the end-of-year scramble, wondering why nothing changed.
Or you can decide that ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough anymore. You can commit to the mindsets and behaviors that create excellence. You can choose to perform with purpose, stay genuinely curious, take real ownership, and continuously improve.
The scramble you’re in right now? It started with choices you made in January. The situation you’ll be in next December starts with choices you make in the coming weeks.
What will you choose?
Afterword: This is the third in a series of articles exploring sales excellence. My upcoming book, Is ‘Good Enough’ Good Enough: Mindset and Behaviors for Sales Excellence, hits shelves in mid-December. It’s about breaking the pattern of ‘just getting by’ and finally achieving the potential you know you have.
Afterword: Here is another outstanding AI generated discussion of this post. A couple of very small hallucinations, but an outstanding discussion. Enjoy!
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