100%

100%

The idea of occasionally making exceptions for our principles sounds perfectly reasonable and agreeable on its face, but can actually be quite insidious in practice.?

In a 2016 panel at Startup Grind, Clayton Christensen distilled the crux of the issue:

“…my whole life has been filled with an unending stream of extenuating circumstances. And if I had said ‘just this once’, the next time it occurred and the next time it’s easier and easier.?
…I decided it is easier to hold to our principles 100% of our time, than it is 98% of the time.”?

What the seemingly harmless 2% difference ends up doing is it opens a never-ending, tiring negotiation with yourself about whether an exception is called for.?

100% commitment might seem like the more hard-headed and challenging option of the two but, as Christensen astutely observed, it may very well be just the opposite.?


The Daily Spark exists for two reasons:

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I'm a second-generation Taiwanese American trying to find life’s greatest sources of meaning and make the most out of it.

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