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Working Towards Your Best
By peace | March 8, 2006
How many of us are the absolute best we can be?
We are usually partially there, but rarely moving at our absolute best.
Sadly enough, most of us are happy enough with a mere shadow of what we could accomplish.
Most of us are happy enough to reach our sales quota (and maybe a little bit beyond), or reach that all-important deadline (maybe a little bit early), or work just enough (but maybe just a little bit harder). We are content to do just enough to get by, with an occasional push to do a little bit more.
Sadly enough, we’re cheating our families, our businesses, our customers, and most of all, we’re cheating ourselves — all by just doing what’s expected, even if we do a little bit more.
When you get right down to it, pushing ourselves farther than we ever realized we could go is the only way to make real progress.
Our lives must be continually managed for growth and renewal.
Perhaps you’re familiar with an instrument biologists use to measure the age of trees. The instrument is driven into the heart of the tree, and then removed to count the rings the tree has grown. This core sample will show some years where drought and fire besought the tree, and other years where nourishment was plentiful. The tree exists through those years, continually growing and adjusting. Some years it grows more than others, but it grows until it reaches the end of its life. That tree does not remain a seedling, nor does it decide suddenly that it’s grown enough.
In our lives, though, many people seem to decide they have progressed enough, and they stop becoming better. As years go on, they become like a living snapshot — frozen in time, no longer relevant, no longer useful.
By a simple matter of giving up, they actually do become their “best self” — the best they will ever become — but it’s only a shadow of what they could have become. Their motto is the old bureaucrat’s byword: “Good enough.”
High achievers, however, always strive to become better. By continually progressing, even if, like the tree, they have occasional problems, they continually get better, wiser, happier. They never stop progressing, and never cease getting better. The high achiever keeps striving to become better, and as a result, continually improves on the idea of “best self.” The high achiever’s motto is the leader’s byword: “Expect the best — and find it.”
To the high achiever, “best” is always a moving target, “excellence” is a minimum requirement, and “extraordinary” is a way of life.
High achievers live their lives wisely and well. High achievers never accept second best, never “settle” for less than their best, never lose sight of their mark. They continually grow and learn, plan and produce, move and dream.
Can you become your best self? If you’re not currently better than you ever have been in your life, you’ve got a bit of work to do.
Each day you should be better than the day before.
Each day, you should work to be better than you have ever been in your life.
Continually growing, continually learning, continually best.
If you want to be the best at anything, You must practice
What three things do these people have in common – Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Andre Agassi, Ronaldo?
They are the best in the world at what they do; yet they practice every day.
How much time do you spend practicing? Would you allow a doctor who has never practiced to operate on you?
If you want to be the best at anything, you must practice every day.
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