There has always been aview in the world that all anyone can do is their best, and yet, does anyone really know what their best is? I used to be a ‘hunt-and-peck’ typist, finding my way around the keyboard as best I could, and I became quite proficient at this mode of typing, I even got up to about 20 words per minute, this was me, doing my best. I then raised the bar on my own performance, I wanted to be quicker and I wanted to watch the screen more than I wanted to watch the keyboard, and so I learnt to touch type, and I was slow…very slow…with many, mistakes, it hardly seemed worth the effort and certainly not ‘doing my best’. Eventually (after about 6 months) I reached the 20 words per minute goal, and was back at my best, but then a strange thing happened, I got faster and the number of errors got less, I became better than my best…is that even possible? Am I alone in improving on my best? How can this be?
I know, is seems rediculous, and it is, sports men and women the world over know that they can improve on their best, they have to to be competitors. In business, the organisation that succeeds and grows is not the one that thinks they are doing their best, they are the ones that look at what they are doing and find ways to improve it, they do better than their best.
If the business leader and the athlete are both aware of this simple fact, why do so many people insist that they are doing their best? In reality, they have no idea what their best is, and all they have done is settle for what they can do now, and assume that it is their best, and then downgrade their aspirations accordingly, and then the level above their current ability suddenly becomes just too far out of reach.
To really be successful youhave to stop looking at what you can achieve now as your ‘best’, and think of it as a starting point. No matter what you want to be truly successful at you are no doubt starting at some level, it is not, however, your best…unless of course you are the world champion, or there are physical limits in which case you may well be doing anyones best, but I doubt that if you are such a person you will be reading this!
When someone tells you that they are ‘Doing Their Best’, what they are really saying is that they are quite happy with the way things have turned out (although they may protest otherwise) and they are unwilling to improve themselves and thus improve their results. Remember, everyone wants something better in their life, few people are actually willing to put the work in to get better things in their life.
The statistic that is bandied about (and seems about right, although any statistic can be used to prove anything) is 10%. Only about 10% of the population are willing to improve themselves, and it is this same 10% that improve the world for the other 90%. If you say that you are doing your best, but are then unwilling to improve then put yourself firmly into the 90%, if you are reading this, then the chances are you are in the top 10%, and this is jsut spuring you on.
If you consider your current ability to be your best, then you have no-where to go, you are at the pinnacle, and the only options open are stay where you are, or drop down. You don’t and won’t know your best until you improve on it, then you know that your best just wasn’t quite as good as it could be.
In 1982 Julie Moss entered a triathlon in Hawaii, it was one of the first televised triathlons, she led for most of the way, and was close to winning when she collapsed from exhaustion just 20 yards from the finish line, she was passed and eventually crawled over the finish line, this was obviously her best…the following year she ran other triathlons, getting better and faster for each one. She never stopped to say she was ‘Doing her best’, she wanted to do better than she had, and she worked towards her goal, and achieved it.
So the next time that someone tells you they were only doing their best, ask how they know, because you may find that what they really mean is that they are quite happy with what they can do and are unwilling (but not unable) to improve.
Oh, and as for the typing,35wpm and climbing…I haven’t reached my best yet, and probably never will!
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