“Good, better best,
Never let it rest,
‘Til your good gets better,
and your better gets best…” Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears Head Coach
The coaching mindset is a way to achieve continuous growth.
As someone deeply invested in performance improvement, I’m often struck by how lessons from outside of medicine translate powerfully into our profession. Recently, Bears Coach Ben Johnson’s “Good, Better, Best” speech resonated with me—not just as a sports mantra, but as a framework that perfectly captures the coaching mindset.
At its core, coaching is about intentional progress. It’s about recognizing where you are today, envisioning where you want to go, and committing to the work that bridges the gap.
The Coaching Mindset and Goal Setting
A coaching mindset isn’t limited to athletics—or even to formal coaching relationships. It’s a way of thinking that applies across every phase of a physician’s career.
For early-career physicians, this mindset may be focused on building a practice, refining clinical skills, or establishing surgical confidence.
For mid- to late-career physicians, it may look like launching a new business, adopting new technology, expanding influence, or transitioning into administrative roles.
No matter the stage, the truth remains the same: there can always be something more.
Whether we choose to pursue that “more” is a personal decision. Whether we work with a coach along the way is a choice. Coaching is not required to reach your highest potential. But I would argue that operating with a coaching mindset is essential.
Defining Good, Better, and Best
The Good, Better, Best framework gives structure to how we set goals and measure progress:
- Good is the minimum goal—the baseline we commit to achieving.
- Better is the stretch goal—the level that requires focus, refinement, and growth.
- Best is the ideal goal—the aspirational outcome we are working towards.
Here’s the critical part: Best doesn’t have to be something we ever fully “arrive” at.
For many of us, Best is aspirational. It’s a moving target. A direction, not a destination. And that’s not a failure—it’s fuel. We understand that best is a work in progress that we’re always working to achieve.
Progress Is the Point
When we adopt a coaching mindset, goal setting becomes less about pressure and more about purpose. Each milestone achieved—Good, then Better—becomes a source of momentum. The journey itself inspires us to keep going.
SurgeonMasters believes this mindset is what separates stagnation from sustained excellence. Whether you engage with a coach or simply commit to thinking like one, the impact is profound.
And that journey is always worth taking.