Doing the best you can is always good enough.
What do you think would change for you if you just tried to always do the best you can? No more, no less. Just do the best you can at any give time.
This came to me again recently when I bumped into a friend I hadn’t seen for weeks. I tried to start a conversation yet the interest seemed to be coming from my end only. As I am the curious type I asked him straight off what was out of sync in his life. I could see from his body language something was bothering him. I got no immediate response and somehow the question came to me; ‘Are you running out of time?’ He looked at me and his shoulders dropped. I took him for a coffee and he started explaining how his partner had lost her job and he had to clock extra hours to pay the mortgage and seemed married to the job now and was never at home for her or the kids.
He said he was doing his best for the family. I asked him to repeat that slowly and think about it. What were the net results of this serious amount of overtime? He was missing out on family time. He was always tired and had become less effective at work as a result so to cover that he had to even more hours. The job had become all about the pay package instead of something he enjoyed. He had gained weight because of bad eating habits. There were rows at home. And so on. On the positive there was more money coming in. And that was it.
When you overdo things, you will spend more energy than you want or can and your best will no longer be good enough. You will deplete yourself and will eventually have to stop all together.
If he just did the hours he wanted to do and could master those then he would be more effective and had to do fewer hours to get the same result. And if that was not sufficient then they had to look at other solutions to deal with the financial issue. Only by doing his best at work in the time he could afford to give it was he going to get the best results. No more, no less. I have met him since and he looked way more relaxed and said he found an extra source of income after sitting down with his partner for a brainstorm.
Doing your best is always good enough and will get the best results. It will also remove any need for blaming your self or judging yourself. Because if you know you did your best then you should be happy with yourself and feel good about yourself!!
Go on, give it a try!!
Patrick Mercie – 4ward 2 Success – 12-12-2008