Always do your best and the book (The Four Agreements, by Don Miguel Ruiz) puts a paragraph in there that’s very important.
Our best can change from day to day.
What is important is that we do our best for that day.
So it’s not like this is my bar and I have to meet it every single day. My bar can fluctuate based on the day. My bar can fluctuate based on my life circumstances at that moment. My bar can fluctuate based on what is, what am I experiencing internally, externally and that’s okay. Wherever that bar is set for that day, always do your best, always. And here’s the reason why. When we do our best as human beings we free ourselves. We save ourselves from suffering, from criticism, from self-abuse. We free ourselves from guilt and shame. I have yet to meet a person that does their best for a specific day in all areas of their life, and at the end of the night looks at themselves in the mirror and says negative things to themselves, is critical, abuses themselves with their words, is full of guilt – it just doesn’t happen.
When you do your Best
When you do what you do to the best of your ability it starts to develop a psychological and emotional sense of well-being. It improves our self-esteem. It improves our self-worth. It allows us to then do the things we want to do in life.
So always do your best. Do your best and also important, acknowledge yourself that you did your best. I think when we do our best we can acknowledge that we did our best because we know we did. So my question to all of you reading this right now is this. How many of you can look at your life in all different areas of it and say that you are consistently doing your best? If the answer is Yes, acknowledge yourself like our friend said there, and continue doing what you’re doing. Because that’s what’s required. If the answer is No, my question to you is this. What’s preventing you or stopping you from doing your best?
What’s holding you back from doing your best?
Are you afraid of what can happen on the other side?
Is it too hard?
Is it too scary?
Is it too overwhelming?
Do you lack consistency?
Do you lack discipline?
And the most important thing to consider when you say I’m not doing my best is the following. Do you believe you have an agreement with yourself that one day you’re going to wake up and that’s the day you’re going to start doing your best? If that answer is Yes I’m going to give you a personal opinion statement. You’re lying to yourself. We don’t just wake up one day and all of a sudden have the motivation, the energy, the desire to do our best. If you don’t do your best today you’re not going to do your best tomorrow.
Our habits can get in the way of doing our best. Our complacency can get in the way of doing our best. Well, my question to anybody that’s experiencing their habit as barriers to doing their best is: “How much longer do you want to engage in those habits?” Are those habits hard to break? Yes. Are the chains of breaking habits hard to break? Yes, but when we break ourselves from those chains we become free and get to live our best life. So if complacency is there which is just stagnation, not moving forward, the question is: “Well, how long do you want to be where you’re at?” Some people might say, “I’m good here, I’m alright,” this talk ain’t for you. “I like to play it safe,” this talk isn’t for you. “I like to not move forward in life,” this talk’s not for you. But if you want to get to a certain place in life then you have to always do your best.
And it says – this quote that I love – it says,
“Every human is an artist. The dream of your life is to make beautiful art.”
And what this means is this. We all got a canvas. You’re born with a canvas and everything that you’ve done up until this moment is kind of the work on it. Now when the canvas is blank we come into this world and people start to spray things on it – you have experiences – it paints. Some of them are beautiful, some of them are nasty, some of them are whatever and eventually it creates this entire piece of art. And you look at it and you say, “God, I don’t know if I like this. I don’t know if I’m happy with what’s on the board. I don’t know if I’m happy with that. I don’t know if this describes me. It’s not really my true self.” This talk inspires those who are not happy with it, to get this book and find out how they can create new agreements for themselves and how they can transform and change the story of their life. Because here’s the thing. When you are able to do so you clear the entire canvas from all of the programming, all of the conditioning, all of the domestication of your family, of your upbringing, of your life events, of your society, the expectations, the norms, the rules, the standards and you get to paint it the way you actually are when you are impeccable with your word. It will show on that piece of painting when you stop taking things personally. It will show on that painting when you stop making assumptions, and start asking questions. It will show up on the painting. And trust me when you always do your best it will show up on that painting.
