When your best isn’t good enough
I often used this expression in the past “I did my best and that’s all that matters” and I hear people say it so often that it’s almost become a cliché.
One day, I realised that even though I may have done my best, it may not have been enough. Think about this for a moment: What if your best, is someone else’s average or worst? Read the last sentence again slowly.
Take the workplace for example; you try really hard to understand the new computer system and you’re quite proud of your efforts, but then another employee comes along and picks it up much faster than you do and gets more work done in the same time. Who will be considered when a promotion comes up? Although you tried really hard, it wasn’t good enough.
Here’s another example; You try your best to be a good mother. You try to do exactly as your mother did and you follow all her examples. But you still feel that something is missing, like your child isn’t truly happy. Then you see another mother who has less experience that you and she seems to have everything under control and her child is happy and fulfilled.
This is the reason why people get very frustrated after trying their hardest year after year and not getting where they want to get to or not becoming who they want to be. It’s like they are always one step behind.
The fact is that many times, more is required from us. Let’s go back to the workplace example. It may be that you need to stay behind after hours for a while and practise using the system. You may need to do a short course to brush up on your IT skills, therefore raising the bar on ‘your best’.
How about the mother example? What you learned from your mother may not be enough to successfully raise a child in today’s society. You may need to read some parenting books, or get advice from another parent with children of a similar age to your child.
Think about what else you can do to get better in those areas of your life that seem to be stuck. How about sitting down and taking some time to think and then plan out the extra things you could do? Then you can start to dig around, discover new things, and so on. Then your best will actually take you places.
I know that many times when I do my best and its just not good enough, it does get frustrating but I think that, thats is where I have to go the extra mile and do more even if it takes me longer than everone else to get things right
ReplyDeleteThis is so true. I've lost count of the amount of times when I've given up on something, claiming that I already tried my best! Usually when people say that, it's because they don't want to try harder or have lost interest in what they were doing. Doing 'our best' is not the same as pushing ourselves further. I'm going to make sure I do the latter! Thanks for this post x
ReplyDeleteThis is a very powerful message Mrs Cris, thank you for it. I will do my best to succeed my best. and it is so true I even catch myself saying that and believing that. and what you said made me think. sometimes our best is just not good enough!
ReplyDeletemagdelina Australia
Mrs Chris. You do not understand how much this blog has helped me. I realised that as a servant sometimes doing more than what is required does not necessarily mean adding more to your responsibilities. But I believe it is finding out how you can improve with the responsibilities that you already have,there is always room for improvement, even when your at the highest there is always something you can do to make it better than it already was.
ReplyDelete"How about sitting down and taking some time to think and then plan out the extra things you could do? Then you can start to dig around, discover new things, and so on. Then your best will actually take you places."
This is what I am going to before Friday and present my plans to God,
Thank you very much xxxx
This is very strong Mrs. Chris...
ReplyDeleteLooking at it in this angle:Sometimes we may even go to the extreme of comparing ourselves with others who tend to progress more than we do because they have given THEIR BEST just as we gave our best on a similar work; but what we don't realise is that their best could be for us our ALL! whereas as you said our best could be their average or even worst. This is why we should always opt to go the EXTRA MILE in everything that we do. And we clearly know that we are reaching that extra mile when we really push ourselves BEYOND our limits and we are able to really feel the pain of that effort. consequently our best will indeed take us places.
this is a great post, I have to go far beyond my best. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAtl, GA
When we think we have done our best there can always be room to do even better if we try even harder. Our conscience tells us when we have really done the best and when we simply have just done the job.
ReplyDeleteThis is really good to take to 2011. Going the extra mile, doing more.
this is strong, and well worth sitting down and looking at myself!
ReplyDeleteI agree with the fact that our own best is not necessarily THE BEST. I understand that it is more than just adding on more responsibilities to our lives and becoming overwhelmed with many things to do. But instead using what we do have and developing on it more, improving on it each time we have to spend on it.
ReplyDeleteFor example if we had to clean our bedroom for one of our rush month tasks for sisterhood, it wouldn't just be to clean our room over and over again in the same way but that we may improve to make it look better each time, with a new accessory or pictures or flowers. So we really push ourselves and make that extra effort. Then that is giving our best.
This post reminds me of last week. After the disasterous final week of last month's Rush month, I almost fell into the trap of thinking, 'well, I've done my best and thats that!' but then I thought 'what if your best is someone else's average or worst?'
ReplyDeleteSo, just like you wrote, I thought about all the things I can differently this time round and it has really helped.
this sort of thing always happens to me I try really hard and I do my best and then someone comes along and doesn’t try at all but they out do my best and then I just feel really bad, so now when i feel I have reached my best I then keep on trying to do even better.
ReplyDeleteI would never have thought this. We can give more than our best if we strive to be better at what we can or cant do.
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ReplyDeleteThis is WHAT I needed. Doing Sisterhood now, I Can give more, regardless of the circumstances or conditions. Nearly brought a tear to my eye because I realised that I complain so much, saying its hard lalalala, but one, I should be happy and GOO the extra mile. Wow. thank you ever so much x
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with this post, as I know a lot of things we do or accomplish we can do even better. As there is always room for improvements, this may because of our mindset, we don’t make room on how to better ourselves which is so healthy because we become a different person in a good way. So the next time we have a task or challenge to do, let us think “how we can go the extra mile” for this task.
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