6.12 Annika Sörenstam: Excellence and Personal Growth

“Sometimes people get scared of the word of excellence, meaning that they believe they can't have any faults, no mistakes, no bogeys. I think, everybody, we learn from our mistakes. And I think that's part of what the word excellence is about.” - Annika Sörenstam

Are you scared of excellence or thinking you have to be perfect?

Annika Sörenstam is a Swedish professional golfer regarded as one of the best female golfers in history. She once said, “Sometimes people get scared of the word of excellence, meaning that they believe they can't have any faults, no mistakes, no bogeys. I think, everybody, we learn from our mistakes. And I think that's part of what the word excellence is about.”

When I was a 7th-grade math teacher, one of the things I tried to teach and train my students was the value of messing up in the learning process. They would rather sit at their desk, unwilling to try out of fear of messing up, than try, fail, and learn when trying, failing, and learning was the most important part of the learning process.

I see the same things with athletes. I see some sit at the back of the line when doing difficult drills or panic under pressure because they are afraid to fail.

Excellence means striving to be your best while accepting that setbacks and errors are normal and even valuable. That’s how you improve and reach a higher level.

In short: Excellence includes failure—it’s how we get better. You can use failure to get closer to excellence by treating it as feedback, not a finish line.

Reflection Questions: How can you use failure to help you get closer to excellence?