"Almost doesn't count, except in horseshoes and hand grenades"

I remember an old proverb that I heard a very long time ago, and it goes something like this: "Almost doesn't count, except in horseshoes and hand grenades."  I was always told that "close enough" or "almost" was rarely good enough, except of course if you were playing horseshoes (where according to my sources - note that I am not a horseshoes aficionado - a horseshoe that lands within six inches of the stake is worth one point) or throwing a hand grenade (again, I have never "tossed" a hand grenade at anyone or anything, but presumably if you are close to the target, the effects of the hand grenade explosion will still inflict damage).  But is it really true that in everything else, "almost" doesn't matter for anything?  For example, if an organization sets an aspirational goal of eliminating central line infections in the intensive care unit by the end of the academic year, would the organization really think of themselves as failures if they reduced (but not eliminated) the infections from, let's say 50 infections per year to 5 infections per year?  A tenfold reduction in central line infections is still something worthy of applause!

I have been thinking about this question a lot over the past day or so.  Just yesterday, the Kenyan marathoner,  Eliud Kipchoge, came just 23 seconds from breaking the 2 hour mark in a marathon.  Nike is apparently sponsoring three long-distance runners (Kipchoge, Lelisa Desisa of Ethiopia, and Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea) to attempt breaking the 2 hour mark in a marathon ("breaking 2").  While Kipchoge didn't break the 2 hour mark, he came awfully close.  It is still an impressive achievement - he average around 4 minutes and 35 seconds per mile, for the entire race (a marathon is 26.2 miles)! Kipchoge was not eligible for the world record (it wasn't an official race, the course was a 1.5 mile Formula One race track in Italy, there were a number of runners helping pace him, and there was even a pace car), but he did run the fastest time ever recorded for a marathon (the world record is 2:02.57, currently held by Dennis Kimetto).  Whatever.  It is still an amazing accomplishment and worthy of admiration and praise.  I am sure that both Nike and Kipchoge are disappointed, and I suspect that they will give another try (they reportedly were going to make three separate attempts at breaking the 2 hour mark).  At least for Kipchoge, I suspect that he would compare his failure of breaking the 2 hour mark to trying to land an astronaut on the moon and not quite getting there.

My wife and I ran the Flying Pig Half-Marathon in Cincinnati, Ohio today.  Our first goal was to finish with smiles on our faces (I ran a full marathon, for the first time, in October, 2015 and was miserable at the end).  Our second goal was to finish below 2:15 (humbling to think that Kipchoge crushed our time and ran twice as far!).  We were definitely smiling at the finish line, but we were just off the pace by about 1 minute.  Still a success.  One could argue that our goal perhaps wasn't as aspirational as breaking 2 hours for a marathon, eliminating all central line infections in the intensive care unit, or landing an astronaut on the moon.  But it was important to us.  I think a lot of personal goals are that way - we are happy with our performance, even if we didn't quite make it, but we are also encouraged to give it another go.  I suspect we will be running another half marathon in the future.

I think what I am trying to say is that when we are "close, but not quite there" to achieving our goals, whether personal goals or organizational goals, we still need to take time to celebrate and view it as an accomplishment and as a win.  In most cases, we will be motivated to work even harder to try to achieve the goal with the next opportunity, but only if we view our performance with a degree of optimism - it is a small win, even if it's not a major victory.  If we get too disappointed, too pessimistic, or call ourselves a failure, I think we only encourage a mindset of "giving up" rather than continuing to try to reach the goal.

So, in my opinion, almost may not count for everything, but it should count for something.  Just like in horseshoes.