How Do I Give My Best?

Over the weekend I was driving for several hours and so I got to listen to The Four Agreements by don Miguel Ruiz.

I’m admittedly still wrestling with and trying to unpack the Four Agreements which are:

1. Be impeccable with your word.
2. Don’t take anything personally.
3. Don’t make assumptions.
4. Always do your best.

I’ll tell you, these concepts are deeply profound but I have tons of questions. The author says, they are the key to self mastery and transformation so I’m eager to dive in.

I’m curious and invested and want to explore them, but I’m still blurry about what they mean.

So this morning I talked over the fourth agreement with my coach — Always give your best.

Through this whole thought process and exercise in growth, I’ve realized how vague “do your best” is. It’s almost too simplistic to me. And through all this, I uncovered some thoughts and new questions to answer.

But here are initial thoughts about it …. and I reserve the right to change, alter, improve them!

1. Ephiphany:

My best is not about giving my all.
And I’ve often gotten them confused.
Or rather my all is “my best” standard measure.

To my coach, I immediately said most of the time I think my best is giving ALL of me to whoever, or whatever. And that’s my measuring stick most times, which is ridiculous and impossible.

Giving my best includes effort, but it’s not giving 120% to everything, all the time. And it’s not JUST level of effort, it’s also level of care and attention and focus and many other things, and situational and contextual.

If my best is my all, it’s exhausting and unattainable on any kind of consistent manner because I’d be exhausted all of the time. And have nothing left over for anything else until I recharged and then gave it all and got exhausted again.

I need reserves in my tank. For everyone and everything else that truly matters to me.

And I know that we all have buckets of time, energy, strengths, experiences.

My best is finite and needs recharging.

2. External Mirror Exercise: To find the criteria of my best, I thought about my son and baseball.

Disclaimer: I’m only using my son here because I’m way more empathetic toward him than myself. I love him. I admire him. I cherish him. I adore him. I want HIS best.

He’s special and amazing in a million ways.

He’s also been an inspirational mirror for how I want to — rather, should — treat myself.

And he also says he really loves baseball. And I want to support him in that.

And if there’s anyone who deserves the BEST of my BEST evaluation, it’s him.

Here’s what comes to mind when I think about baseball and my son:

• Do his words and actions line up, match up, square up with each other?
• Does the effort, attention, focus, care and commitment he’s putting in for baseball sync with what he says about it?
• Does he show up? Does he put in a reasonable amount of energy and effort to practice?
• Is he doing all this in THIS moment right now? And should we even be measuring this moment by moment? One moment is not forever either. That feels WAY too micromanaging and nitpicky.
• What resources do he have available to himself … in this moment? Is he feeling ok? Does he have enough energy available? Is he distracted by other bigger stuff?
• Is he trying? Is he trying enough? Does he care enough about this that he’s brining all of his available self to this moment?

BINGO ….
Care.
I measure how much he cares about something by his actions, and his actions tell me if he’s giving his best, overall.

Because if he REALY cares about it, he’ll give his available best to it.

Now let’s switch this back to me ….

How much I care about it should result in the actions I give toward it, which are a big indication of my Best.

That’s really good feedback to apply back to myself.

My Best is a measure of My Care

But are my actions the only criteria? Could non-action also be present and the right thing to do at that moment?

Whew. OK. Moving on.

3. Epiphany: My best is variable and conditional. It is contextual and situational and often moment-to-moment and dependent on other things.

It really depends on the person or people, the task or project and my priorities and how/where I want to spend my best.

I don’t think I can give my best to everything.

My best has a budget.

4. Epiphany: My best should be defined by me and my values and priorities FIRST.

Some things don’t require or even deserve my best.

I don’t care about some things. Or yeah, even some people. I won’t give my best to them, at least with my current mindset.

5. Starter epiphany worth exploring further: My best is my unique signature on it.

• My care
• My attention
• My focus
• The application of myself to it

6. Epiphany: If my best is defined by me, then I am the Judge, and that sucks right now.

I’m the worst critic of myself. I’m the worst judge of myself. (See how I’m judging my judging?)

But I know I get to decide what my best is. No one else.

But I also know …. my Judge will never think it’s enough, even my best. So I have a lot of further work to do there.

7. Question: What or who am I comparing my best to?

Today’s Crappy Answer: A perfect image of myself of what my best is ALL the time. My best of the best is the mark and standard of the relentless, unforgiving Judge.

In other words, to the impossible.

So I asked myself this BETTER question instead ….

At the end of my life, how will I know I gave my best?

And I went by people (my most important priority) and the roles I am in to the people I care most about …. for instance ….

• How will I know I gave my BEST as a husband?
• How will I know I gave my BEST as a father?
• How will I know I gave my BEST as an entrepreneur?
• How will I know I gave my BEST as a partner?
• How will I know I gave my BEST as a leader?
• How will I know I gave my BEST as a friend/brother/son?
• How will I know I gave my BEST as a champion of mental health?

8. QUESTION: What is the EXPECTATION the other person has of me and my best so I can ensure I give my best?

I have a desire to give my best and what my best is and my contribution. But does that match the expectation of the other parties involved?

For the people above, I do deeply want to know their expectations. And by mine, can I meet them?

***

OK, so that’s it for now. I gave my Available Best at Clicking Publish today. And now I’m clicking publish, knowing this isn’t perfect. It’s not perfectly refined. But it meets my standards for Clicking Publish.

Yes. I gave my Available Best for this post. For now. And I’m OK with that.