I remember my parents telling me to do your best! Everyone can try to do their best. Too often, something prevents us. It could be lack of skills, experience or effort. Too often your past prevents you from success. If you do not have the skills to succeed and fail constantly, you are unlikely to keep trying. Next step is giving up or failure. What are going to do?
Activity is not Achievement
Albert Einstein is attributed to have said doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. Do you keep doing the same things and expecting different results? I see people in that rut all the time. It ranges from weight loss, school, jobs, careers, home life, social life and everything else. Success means doing the things that helps you succeed. When you fail, pick yourself up and approach your problem or goal differently.
Did you do your best today? What can you do differently to do your best? Each day, you should set out to do your best. It starts right away with how you approach everything. Your attitude is everything. You should approach everything positively as if you expect to succeed. If you are successful at everything you do, how would you act? I know I would be happy all the time.
Positive thinking or good attitude is infectious! Given a choice, who would you rather be with, the happy successful people or the complainers? I usually stick with the successful people because the complainers usually bring me down. I am competitive and I find that positive people bring the best out of me. Besides, it is more fun to be around happy people.
What is your Approach?
How do you approach life? Do you always do a good job? Do you always do the right thing? Every day, I reflect on what I do to determine if I made my best effort. If I did not, I change what I can to do a better job the next day. How do you measure your best? I take every opportunity to give my best. It may be saying good morning to everyone, showing appreciation or encouraging others to do their best and helping others.
Doing your best is vague because it can be interpreted in so many ways. How can you evaluate the “best” performance? You need to set specific goals. How else can you determine if you did your best? Goals have to be measurable to hold yourself accountable for the results. If the goals are set reasonable, meeting your goals would be one way to measure success or your best.
School is no different than life!
In school, did you get all A’s? If not, did you do your best? Not everyone will get A’s in school, but you can do your best. What was your best in school? In college, I had a 3.65 GPA. Could I have done better? I doubt it because I was carrying 18 and 19 semester credits. For some students, their best may be less and others better. Every student is has different skills and abilities.
Your career and personal life is no different. Some people are promoted quickly and others struggle to find the right career. Does it mean that the person who is not promoted is a failure? No, he/she may not have found the right career. Doing your best means you are doing what you can reasonably achieve. Did you meet your expectations?
I usually start with my goal or what I want to achieve and work backwards to accomplish it. For example, I want to save $X for retirement. How much do I need to invest every year to achieve it? Can I sacrifice enough to meet the annual goals? If it is important to me, I will make the changes necessary to meet my goal. I did the same thing when I wanted to lose weight. I set the goal weight and how much was reasonable to lose each week. I monitored my progress and adjusted my efforts.
Final Thoughts
Doing your best can be vague! Setting goals will keep you accountable and gives you a way to measure your progress. One of my past articles titled “How to Get What You Want?” discusses goal setting and how to achieve success. Since there is no guarantee of success, you need to monitor your progress and adjust your efforts to meet your goals. What are your expectations of success? Whether it is work, or your personal life, how do you know you do your best?
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For me, setting goals is very important whether you achieve it or not. Without it you can’t focus on what you are trying to achieve and best of it. You can say that you try your best if you achieve and it became success in whatever you do. Thanks for sharing this post. Great!
You’re welcome. I find I am far less focused when I do not have goals or tasks to accomplish on a daily basis.
I love making goals and pushing harder and harder. If I ever fail a certain goal, I try to break up the goal into smaller components to make it easier.
I do it in reverse! I take the goal and break it down to daily tasks. It is much easier that way.
Goals are what keep me focused as well. That along with visualizing the end result help me to do my best so that I reach them.
Visualizing is always good! I monitor my progress and adjust my effort to reach my goals.