Masterful Mindsets ~ Always Do Your Best

“Your best is going to change from moment to moment, it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstances, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse, and regret.”  ~ Don Miguel Ruiz

So many people put pressure on themselves to be perfect and what I find interesting about that, is the pressure of “perfect”, usually gets in the way of actually being your best. Maybe you can relate… Do you put pressure on yourself to be perfect or do you accept that your best is enough and simply make it a point to be your best true you each day?

This is where the fourth agreement, Always Do Your Best, from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements, comes in. It really could be the easiest of all the agreements and yet so many people struggle with it. But it’s not because they don’t want to be their best, or they aren’t capable of doing their best. But rather, it’s usually a result of not believing that their best is good enough. So instead they harshly judge themselves and strive for being unrealistically perfect. Which most often results in disappointment or being so paralyzed by the fear of failing to reach that lofty goal, that they stop striving all together and end up feeling regretful or angry at themselves for missing a mark that they weren’t ever going to reach.

So what’s the good news? You don’t have to be perfect, you just need to always do your best, to live a happy life.

The expectation of perfectionism will trip you up much more often than it’ll ever help or motivate you. But vowing to live by this last agreement – to always do your best – can move you farther than you might imagine and it doesn’t have to be hard. Plus, the shift is so very freeing and rewarding. You’ll be amazed, when you let go of the debilitating expectations around being perfect and simply strive to be your best (whatever that is for you each day and in all situations) how much more you are actually capable of.

How do I know? Well, I am a recovering perfectionist. So, my mode of operation in the past was to put something off until I knew I could make it perfect. (News Flash – waiting till something is perfect usually means it will never happen.) Or I’d judge my efforts and beat myself up to the point that nothing I did was ever good enough. And consequently, end up frustrated to the point of giving up. Literally paralyzing myself and creating the exact failure I feared.

Then it finally hit me, the quest to be perfect was causing more disappointment, failure and regret than anything else. And any success I had, didn’t seem to matter because it was never “perfect enough”. It wasn’t until I was able to define what my best was and to believe that my best was enough, that I found my way to being better – more successful, much happier, and free from perfectionism.

Please, let me encourage you to make the shift from perfectionism to simply always doing your best. The journey to letting go of that perfectionism start by realizing that:

Self-judgement, self-abuse and regret are no way to win at life. Begin each day, with a clean slate and a new measure of what your best is for that day. In all situations and under every circumstance, decide what your best could be and set the bar there. Because the truth is, life really is not about perfection. It’s about showing up every day and giving your best. That is what creates a happy life.

So, take this last agreement and get some clarity on what doing and being your best really means to you. Redefine “perfect” for yourself. (Please don’t base your definition on societal beliefs or norms and certainly don’t let self-limiting beliefs from your family of origin influence your definition.) Make the definition yours and then commit to being your best true you each and every day – in everything you do and how you show up in the world. If you make a commitment to be the best you that you can be, your life will be forever changed. And you’ll be amazed at how good it feels to simply be your best true you.

***I want to hear from you… Share your thoughts about this week’s topic below! And don’t forget to join me for Facebook Live this week at 2:00pm Mountain (1:00pm PT, 3:00pm CT, 4:00pm ET) on my Facebook Biz Page:  Coach Michelle Weimer

***Haven’t gotten the book yet but you’re loving these concepts? Get it Here!