Remember that phrase from school? “Could have done better”. The fact is that my teachers were usually correct.

However, here are two more facts: Few explained to me why it was important to do better and an even lesser number showed me how. OK, that’s my statement of revenge, but where does it get us?

This morning, I was reading a blog from the Harvard Business Review which argued that average is usually good enough. I was surprised by the tome of the article, especially coming from such a peer source.

On the other side of the coin, I often refer my coaching clients to a six minute clip from the film “Facing the Giants“. The coach of an American college football team urges his team to do “their very best”. I ask people to consider what that really means.

What is your very best? How far can you really go in order to achieve what you desire from business and from life? Just because all of this may not get you to where you want to be nor make you the tops, does that mean you have failed? And the killer question, where I demand total honesty; would you have gone so far through the approach of ‘just getting by’?

All this was brought home to me by three different people, whom I have met over the past month in Jerusalem. Each one is struggling to move on commercially. And each one has been just doing enough in between sessions to keep moving ahead, a bit. After all, to sum up their stories in a generic response, what else could they have done?

Well, my response was to set each one a task (academic, financial, physical or any combination thereof), which I sugar-coated in welcoming phrases, but I knew would not be simple to perform. Effectively, I was showing and encouraging them how to move ahead, placing a host of psychological fears to one side.

In parallel, through a series of questions, I forced them to recognise the consequences of ‘staying where they are today’. Again, each individual had their own Achilles heel.

I am sure there are situations where being average is good enough. However, as a rule of life, that policy is not………..good enough. It is not the best, which is usually so more beneficial.