How Good Will Destroy Your Marriage And Your Life

Ask most people what kind of rewards good effort gets and they will tell you good rewards. As Anthony Robbins shares, herein lies a painful lesson that leaves many people asking, “What went wrong?”

Consider a car engine. Were it 100% efficient it would get 200 or more miles per gallon. However, roughly 80% of the fuel is lost as heat energy that does nothing to propel the car forward. In short, the engine gives far less output than what it takes in for fuel.

The same is true for all energy systems, including the amount of energy you put into pursuing a goal or in making a change. It is the “law of diminishing returns”, and it is inescapable.

So what results do you get for good effort? As Robbins shares, you get poor rewards. In a job this means you get shown the door, and in a marriage it means a lifeless partnership. (This is why so many people at the brink of divorce say, “I don’t know why my wife left me, I was a good husband.” Unfortunately, it was the good that was the problem.)

Here is the catch, to get “good results” you have to put in excellent effort. However, this leaves people unsatisfied because they feel the effort was not worth the payoff. This is who so many people reach the end of a goal asking, “Is this all there is?”

So where are all the rewards? To get the excellent rewards where satisfaction and fulfillment are found, one needs to give outstanding effort. This is giving just a little more than everyone else; it means your effort “stands out” among the rest.

As Robbins shares, it is a long way from poor to excellent effort, but it is just a small distance from excellent to outstanding effort. But that little bit more is where the huge pay off takes place.

Take physical health and exercise. It is common to see people in the gym giving lackluster exertion 3 times a week and wondering why they are not seeing results.

After all they reason, they are exercising more than someone who doesn’t go to the gym at all, so they think they should get three times the results as that person. This is simply false. The law of diminishing return is always at work, and poor effort gets zero return. It is not right or wrong, it is simply how things are.

So ask yourself at the end of the week: was I an outstanding spouse, did I give outstanding effort to my dreams, was I an outstanding entrepreneur or parent? When you answer these questions honestly, you will begin to see what you need to change.

Want all the rewards? Then stop settling for “good enough”, choose to raise your standards, and commit to being outstanding every day. When you do that, you will be unstoppable.