Being Your Best is Being Empowered. Being your best is truly about living life fully, with a sense of worthiness, direction and empowerment.
Being your best is totally different than ‘doing your best.’ Doing implies action and ‘doing your best’ is based on a variety of contingencies rooted in day to day activities. ‘Doing’ also means there are external causes (action steps and results) that directly measure and determine whether you are ‘doing your best,’ and are worthy of recognition.
The idea that ‘doing your best’ will get you to the ‘Promised Land’ of achieving your goals, getting what you want and looking good to the rest of the world, is a flawed belief and a huge assumption at best. And why is that?
Ask yourself this question: ‘How would I define my version of ‘doing my best?’ Can you define it in real measurable terms? Have you ever achieved your perceived level of ‘doing my best?’ Or is it some unattainable goal far off in the future and even out of reach?
Does your ‘best’ even seem impossible because you believe you are unworthy of succeeding and shining?
When another person says to you ‘Do your best!’ do you know what they want from you? More important, ask yourself, ‘Do they know what they want from me?’
They know exactly what they want from you when they say ‘Do your best!’ They are really saying, ‘Make me happy and don’t disappoint me!’
The world has taken the term ‘do your best’ and turned it in to a form of manipulation resulting in never feeling good enough, smart enough or even loveable. Just hearing the words ‘do your best’ engulfs us in feeling guilty, worried and anxious and sets us up for on-going disappointment. It is the reason why we procrastinate, suffer from paralysis of analysis, and unwarranted perfection.
If you have spent much of your life focused on ‘doing your best’ in the name of making others happy and getting their approval, then consider stopping now! Stop focusing on ‘doing your best’ and shift to ‘being your best.’
Here is how you make this shift and know that you are ‘being my best.’ Get in-touch with how you really feel about yourself and your life in general. Review how you feel about your career, your business and your personal life. Write these feelings down.
Do these feelings bring up positive or negative emotions? Are they empowering or exhausting?
Understand that being empowered is a feeling and a state of being. It has nothing to do with what you do or ‘doing your best’ or not. Being empowered, and feeling it, means you are being your best. Why? Because when you feel good about yourself everything you do exudes that sense of empowerment from within.
‘Being your best’ results in taking inspired action. Inspired action is a demonstration of who you authentically are. It feels easy and effortless, and gives you a true sense of aliveness and purpose. It also means that you choose not to live your life for the sole purpose of making other people happy. Continuing to buy in to ‘doing your best’ means you will continue to define yourself and how you live your life based on how others see you and what they want from you.
Moving away from ‘doing my best’ to ‘being my best’ is a paradigm shift that results in true self-empowerment. Being your best requires you to become more inner-focused. This is not being selfish! It is actually about becoming quite generous!
Being inner-focused, so you can be your best, is about taking care of yourself first. Recall the quote “Be the change you want to see.” This is about living the life you choose! Not your parents’ vision for your life, not your spouse’s vision, and not your boss.’ This is about living life on and with purpose. Selfishness is when someone attempts to get you to live the life they choose for you. This is unhealthy and sets us up for a lot of suffering and disappointment.
Being your best means you love and appreciate yourself. It does not mean you don’t care about other people. When you really understand that being your best is the same as being empowered, you will actually give more and have more.
Let’s face it, if you don’t become your best you are withholding your greatness from the world. To be your best, begin to nurture yourself and all your gifts and talents. Allow yourself to explore your innate creativity. Be open and willing to shine simply for the sake of the experience! Author and publisher Robert Collier said it best when he wrote, “All power is from within and therefore under our control.” Look within, be your best, and watch your life transform!
To learn how to ‘be your best’ contact The Possibility Coaches™ for your complementary coaching session. Inquire about your session here.
Jon Satin and Chris Pattay – The Possibility Coaches™
© Possibility Coaches, LLC
Thanks, Chris and Jon, for distinguishing between “doing your best” and “being your best”. This article is very helpful and inspiring.
Hi Shekinah, glad to help out. Yes, there is a big difference between the two. The first implies that you are ‘not enough’ and the second is about being yourself first. Learning how to ‘just be’ is so important for your personal growth and for nurturing your soul! ~Chris and Jon
I have spent far too many years trying to ‘look my best’ based on what I thought others wanted to see. I was lost and powerless. Thank you both for helping me to let go of that.
Pat, you can only be who YOU are! You are already the best! Trying to change yourself to please others is exhausting. Thanks for sharing. It is now your time to “JUST BE” your self! ~Chris and Jon
Great stuff – here’s my take:
The concept of “Doing my best” has been a plaguing and cancerous reality for much of my life. I’ve viewed existence – whether I’ve realized it in the past or not – as deriving its ultimate purpose from pleasing others and reaping subsequent “benefits”; however, this lifestyle is not sustainable if one wants to experience pure and tangible peace. “Doing my best” is not contingent on the delusional scales of success that society has established, but rather by our own measure.
No, this way of life is not selfish: it is self-empowering.
I have always been a tremendous fan of film and the deep messaging that it can convey, and – one of my favorite directors – Ingmar Bergman comments on the feelings of an individual who has succumbed to depression, to fear, and to the perception that life lacks meaning (as can be related to individuals falling prey to “Doing their best” in the context of pleasing others): “When you feel perpetually unmotivated, you start questioning your existence in an unhealthy way; everything becomes a pseudo-intellectual question you have no interest in responding whatsoever. This whole process becomes your very skin and it does not merely affect you; it actually defines you. So, you see yourself as a shadowy figure unworthy of developing interest, unworthy of wondering about the world – profoundly unworthy in every sense and deeply absent in your very presence.”
Such unworthiness and inability to interact with and embrace “your very presence” must be and can be broken by accepting oneself and realizing that we are, in fact, the sources of our own peace, joy, love, and purpose. In the phrase “Doing my best” we rarely recognize the importance of the word “my”; we substitute it with phrases that revolve around pleasing external entities – parents, partners, society, etc. – which causes us to formulate unachievable goals that leave us exhausted, unfulfilled, and self-defeating. And that’s why “Being your best” is the truth that we must accept.
If you are struggling with embracing these and others concepts, I can vouch for the Possibility Coaches’ perspective as it has changed the way in which I view my life, others, and my purpose in this world. And, I’ll add that the previous sentence is not a marketing ploy but honest words from a recovering self-loathing individual. Jon and Chris can and are willing to help – what do you have to lose?
Hang in there friends; true peace exists.
JPD
As someone who has spent most of her life feeling (on one level or another) like a disappointment, I intend to embrace your advice and just be me and BE my best. As always, thank you for providing me with the tools and inspiration to live a more authentic life.
Sarah, thanks for your comment! Also, thank you for sharing and being so open and vulnerable! Best advice is to BE yourself and just BE! ~Chris and Jon
Being your best vs. Doing your best….I don’t think I’ve ever paused long enough to distinguish between the two. You mentioned living life on purpose. It’s caused me to stop and think how much of my life I’ve been living in default mode. That’s a scary thought. Thank you.
Maria, now is a great time to hit the ‘pause’ button!
It’s time to reflect on ‘being’ rather than ‘doing.’
By being in the ‘being’ mode more often, this will assist you to live your life on purpose…
Remember, we are human BEINGS not human DOING!
Thanks for your feedback and comments. ~Chris and Jon
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