#62: on the pursuit of excellence

Is it possible to strive for excellence and not let the pursuit or the achievement define you?

I remember taking beginner ballet lessons a few years ago and being so disappointed in how lax the classes were. Anything was acceptable as long as you somewhat tried. There were no standards you were held to, and minimal feedback was given. I was never tired or sore after class.

What the hell?

This was ballet, I shouldn’t have been able to move after! I wanted a classic Russian teacher who was going to swat my ass with a ruler when I fell out of line.

I felt the same at a beach volleyball clinic I went to last summer. On the third session, people still couldn’t figure out that they had to come up to the net when they were the next person in line for drills.

Once again, what the hell? What are we doing here?

I’ve had that chip on my shoulder for as long as I can remember.

When I was in pre-kindergarten in Bulgaria (around 5 years old), I volunteered to read to the other kids during recess. Apparently they weren’t really interested. When I got home, I complained to my grandma that they didn’t listen to me because they “were too small-minded” (LOL).

When I do things, it’s because I want to get better at them. I want to understand more, I want to try new ways of doing it, I want to build my skills. I want to see what I’m capable of.

Which means pushing. Constantly pushing to do more, achieve more, grow more.

Working as a tech startup founder was a great fit for me because of how much it demanded, and the unending opportunities to learn new things. The downside was I leaned into it so hard (I dated + lived with my-cofounder and we thought about work from the second we woke up to the second we fell asleep) that after 2 years, I burned out. Recovery looked like spending three months sitting on the couch staring at nothing, then another month at the dining room table drawing lines and boxes over and over again.

So many lines and boxes

I came back to my startup after those 4 months, but with a fear of really pushing myself. It felt like bringing my hand towards a hot red oven burner.

Hey remember that time when you were really obsessive about your film-tech company but then you crashed for 4 months and also ended up shutting down your company and breaking up with your boyfriend who was also your co-founder? That’s what happens when you so care so much about something. Stop doing that. Care just a normal amount.

There were a lot of conversations springing up around that time about work-life balance, toxic hustle culture, etc. and I leaned into it.

I tried to figure out what “a normal amount of work” was based on what all the articles and LinkedIn posts were saying. And I put up guard rails for myself with rules like:

• no work after 5 pm or on weekends

• no looking at emails after-hours

• no responding to Slack messages after-hours

The funny thing is, the stronger the guard rails I put up, the more aware I was of when something approached them.

Before, I would never have thought about what time of day it was when I sent an email or responded to a message. I had no cut-offs for finishing work - it was over when I got through what needed to be done.

With my new rules, it felt like I had to be constantly vigilant — and mostly against myself.

I was still striving for excellence. But I was now striving for excellence in how well I could find work-life balance by adhering to a strict set of rules and making sure they were never broken.

It took up way more mental energy than just doing the actual work. It made me feel miserly with my time, energy, and ambition.

Giving it your all just gets you burned, was constantly in the back of my mind. You need to care just a normal amount.

I’ve been trying to look at that a little more lately.

I miss throwing myself into something, not caring what time it is or what’s an appropriate level of care or do the rules allow me to do this. But I’m also scared of losing myself like I did before.

And then I keep coming back to the question, is it possible to strive for excellence and not let the pursuit or the achievement define you?

Or is the only way truly to let yourself be consumed?

✨

Warmly yours,

Nina