Getting better always carries a cost. At a minimum, it takes time – sometimes a lot of it. It can also require finances and resources – sometimes a lot of it. What’s more, it can cause considerable discomfort and frustration that comes from shedding the “tried and true” ways of doing things.

What often costs more, though, is staying stuck in routines and processes that don’t serve people and organizations as well as they could and should.

So how do you strike the right balance? How do you know when the cost of getting better is worth the investment of time and resources it takes to produce the desired results? How do you know when the status quo of “good enough” really is enough?

“Habit is a good servant, but a bad master,” said Gretchen Rubin in her remarkable book, Better Than Before. That insight goes to the heart of how to resolve the “good enough” predicament.

Fact is, we need good established habits, processes and routines to serve and save us from needing to rethink and readjust everything we do every day. That’s true in the workplace and life in general. But when we let them take over our work and our lives, they can become a resistant force that goes unexamined and unchallenged.

Here’s what’s most alarming and insidious about that captive state.The habits and routines that most often become our masters are the ones that work – the habits, processes and routines we put up with as “good enough” … just fine … copasetic … no need to rock the boat.

Overcoming that hand-cuffed status quo requires creating an intentional habit for improvement to break the default habit of doing things over and over again the same way.

Here’s the key. That does NOT mean you everything all the time.It simply means that you devote time routinely and systematically to assessing if improvement is worth the cost. That way, you stay in charge of your habits, not their slavish servant.

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