To strive for excellence is to do the best we can in everything that we do. It is in this striving that excellence lies. But in today’s success-driven world, excellence is measured by the outcome. While we can control the effort we put into something, never have we been able to control outcomes, in spite of our best attempts. As a result, measuring “excellence” by the outcome instead of by our sincere endeavors is an ill-placed criterion which will usually end in frustration. We would be wiser to strive for excellence in effort.