Did You Do Your Best Today?
Did you do your best today? I suspect most people would answer yes without much thought or come up with some reason or circumstance that limits the best they can currently do. I don't think many people would willingly answer 'no' to that question. If you were being honest with yourself, what would you answer?
A few years ago, I came across the following quote and it hit me hard.
I had applied for the nuclear submarine program, and Admiral Rickover was interviewing me for the job. It was the first time I met Admiral Rickover, and we sat in a large room by ourselves for more than two hours, and he let me choose any subjects I wished to discuss.
Very carefully, I chose those about which I knew most at the time—current events, seamanship, music, literature, naval tactics, electronics, gunnery—and he began to ask me a series of questions of increasing difficulty. In each instance, he soon proved that I knew relatively little about the subject I had chosen.
[...]
Finally he asked me a question and I thought I could redeem myself. He said, "How did you stand in your class at the Naval Academy?"
[...]
I swelled my chest with pride and answered, "Sir, I stood fifty-ninth in a class of 820!" I sat back to wait for the congratulations—which never came. Instead the question: "Did you do your best?"
I started to say, "Yes, sir," but I remembered who this was, and recalled several of the many times at the Academy when I could have learned more about our allies, our enemies, weapons, strategy, and so forth. I was just human. I finally gulped and said, “No, sir, I didn’t always do my best.”
He looked at me for a long time, and then turned his chair around to end the interview. He asked one final question, which I have never been able to forget—or to answer. He said, “Why not?” I sat there for a while, shaken, and then slowly left the room.
From the book, Why Not the Best? by Jimmy Carter
Did I do my best? No, only occasionally.
Why not?
To this day, I still did NOT do my best most of the time. If you tell me I can press a button and instantly be the best version of myself, I would push it. I suspect most people would as well.
But if you tell me such a button actually exists, except it involves some 13 odd steps before the (mostly placebo) button can be revealed, steps such as "building a productivity system," "cultivating self-discipline and mental resilience," "goal planning and habit tracking," etc. Most people would probably give up and not bother. It's ironic because isn't that what it means to be your best self? Someone who can get stuff done, is disciplined and resilient, has goals to strive towards, etc?
So let me say 'yes' and go through those steps. Step one happens to be very simple, and it starts with awareness.
At the end of every day, ask yourself. Did you do your best today?
If yes, mark it on your calendar.
If not, why not? What made you unable to do your best? Write it down, learn from it, and try again tomorrow.