WHEN DID DOING THINGS WELL BECOME OPTIONAL?

Hi, it’s Maria!

I have to admit, I've been a little frustrated this week.

Not by one huge thing. Honestly, it's almost the opposite. It's been a collection of small things that have left me wondering when doing something well, on

time, and the way you said you were going to do it became such a big ask.

Maybe I'm particular. Actually, I know I'm particular. I care about details, I care about timelines, and if I tell someone I'm going to do something, I feel a

responsibility to actually do it. I don't expect everyone to operate exactly like I do, and I've had to learn that my sense of urgency isn't automatically everyone

else's.

But I also think there's a difference between understanding that people work differently and lowering the bar for what it means to do something well.

Lately, it feels like we're getting a little too comfortable with the latter.

Emails go unanswered for days. Deadlines quietly come and go. You hire someone to do something and end up following up three times just to make sure

it's happening. Someone tells you they'll have something to you Friday, and somehow you're the one checking in on Monday. You pay for a service and find

yourself surprised when someone actually does a great job.

And maybe that's the part that's bothering me most.

Why has competence become surprising?

There is something almost shocking now about encountering someone who is

really good at what they do. Someone who calls when they say they're going to call. Someone who notices the detail before you have to point it out. Someone

who communicates before there's a problem instead of explaining afterward why something didn't happen.

Someone who takes enough pride in their work that

you don't have to manage them into caring about the outcome.Those people stand out immediately.

And I don't think they should. Doing a good job shouldn't be exceptional. I've had to think about this a lot as a business owner because I'm on both sides of

it now. I have expectations of the people I work with, but there are also hundreds of people who have expectations of me and of BARE.

If a client walks through our doors, they don't care that someone called out, that the morning was

chaotic, or that something went wrong behind the scenes. They paid for an experience, and it's our responsibility to deliver it.

That's part of the deal. And I think somewhere along the way we've become so focused on giving

ourselves grace that we've forgotten there are moments when other people are counting on us.

I'm all for grace. Life happens. Things go wrong. Nobody operates at 100 percent every day, and I certainly don't. But grace and standards can exist at the same time.

You can understand that someone is having a hard week and still expect them to communicate. You can understand that something went wrong and still expect it to be fixed. You can have empathy for someone's circumstances without pretending the outcome didn't affect anyone else.

I don't think expecting people to follow through is demanding. I think it's respect. If I tell you I'll have something to you Friday, your plans may depend on having it Friday. If I show up twenty minutes late, I've decided my time matters more than yours. If someone has to repeatedly remind me to do something I've already agreed to do, I've made my responsibility theirs.That's the part I think we forget. How we do things affects other people.

Maybe that's why doing things well has always mattered so much to me. It's not

about perfection. I'm certainly not perfect, BARE is, but I'm not. Things go wrong here too.

It's about caring enough to notice when they do.

It's fixing the mistake. Sending the email. Following up before someone has to chase you. Taking the extra five minutes to make something right instead of

deciding it's probably good enough. There is a level of pride in that that I think we've started to lose.

I grew up in environments where details mattered. You practiced until something was right. You took corrections and applied them. You didn't get

credit simply because you showed up. There was always another level you could reach, and there was something incredibly satisfying about knowing you had done something well. I still believe in that.

I believe there should be things in your life that have your name on them, literally or figuratively, and that should mean something to you.

I believe if you're going to do something, you should care about how you do it. I believe being dependable is a wildly underrated quality. And I don't think having standards makes someone unreasonable.

Maybe that's an unpopular opinion in a world that has become very good at explaining why something didn't happen. But I don't want to become so understanding of everything that I stop expecting

anything.There should still be a standard. For the people I work with. For the people I hire. For the businesses I give my money to. And, probably most importantly, for myself. Because doing things well isn't about being perfect. It's about caring that your work, your word, and your effort still mean something.

From my core to yours,

Maria Stege

Founder & CEO, BARE Pilates Studio

…and that’s The Naked Truth