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We often describe people as overestimating their performance when they believe they are doing exceptionally well despite producing mediocre results.

We might say they are delusional, unrealistic, or simply unaware of their shortcomings, but what if they genuinely are performing exceptionally well?

What if the problem is not their perception, but their reference point?

Imagine someone whose normal performance has been consistently poor. They make a modest improvement and suddenly feel as though they are "shooting the lights out." From their perspective, they may be right. Compared with where they started, the improvement may be extraordinary. The problem arises when their personal benchmark is mistaken for an objective one.

A person can move from twenty percent effectiveness to forty percent effectiveness and experience that as a remarkable achievement. Someone measuring against an expected standard of eighty percent may see something entirely different.

Both perceptions can be genuine. This is why performance cannot always be understood without knowing the baseline.

Progress and excellence are not the same thing.

Someone can be making tremendous progress while still performing below an acceptable standard. Conversely, someone can be performing well while making very little personal progress. The danger occurs when improvement becomes an excuse to stop improving.

Perhaps we should ask two questions rather than one:

"How much better are you than you were?"

And:

"How good are you compared with what is actually required?"

The first measures growth. The second measures performance.

Confusing the two can create a dangerous form of satisfaction, where someone celebrates improvement while remaining unaware that the destination is still far away. Sometimes you really are shooting the lights out. You just need to check how low the ceiling was.