And Why the “Doing Your Best is Always Enough” Myth Might Be Killing Your Success
The toxic positivity movement, growing over recent years from parents to tee-ball coaches to life coaches, will tell you otherwise.
The movement will tell you that your best is always good enough.
Unfortunately, that’s a lie, and until you realize it, you’re likely to remain stuck and mediocre. Believing your best is always good enough leads to entitlement, ego-centricity, self-sabotage, depression, mediocrity, and lack of awareness.
Your best may be good enough, but not always, so let’s stop saying it is.
Athletes know this. Doctors (and patients) know this. American Idol contestants know this. Entrepreneurs and corporate leaders know this.
And you know this because you’ve experienced it. Even when you did your best, you lost the game, lost the girl, got laid off, got divorced, gained weight, didn’t get the award, or lost the promotion.
Here’s what to do when your best isn’t good enough.
Why Doing Your Best Might Not Be Good Enough
Your best may not be good enough for one of several reasons:
- You can’t control external results and outcomes. Your book didn’t resonate with the publisher. Your sales pitch didn’t hit home. Your voice didn’t connect with the audience. Your company has shut down your project.
- What you are trying to do has an objective measuring stick, and you didn’t measure up. The boat sank, the bombs missed, you can’t lift the weight, your test score wasn’t high enough, you didn’t meet the deadline, you missed the shot, or you didn’t hit the sales quota.
- Others were better. You scored fewer goals, you ran slower, your product (or marketing) wasn’t as good, or your offer was less.
Sometimes the reason is objective, and sometimes it’s relative, but you’re best is not always good enough.
We’re Really Talking About Failure And What You Do With It
“The difference between average people and achieving people is their perception of and response to…failure.”
– John Maxwell, Failing Forward
You have given your best effort and failed. So what? So have I, and it’ll happen again. Why deny it or pussy-foot around it?
Telling yourself that it was good enough (when it wasn’t) lets you off the hook, but success comes from being on the hook.
The real question is, what have you done with these past failures, and what will do you with future failures?
Lord knows I’ve failed, and sometimes those failures led to future successes, and sometimes they led…nowhere. When I look back on failures in situations where I gave my best effort, I can see two paths:
- The failure showed me where I needed to improve and that I could improve and find a path to success — ie, I could improve upon my current best effort.
- The failure showed me that my best would never be good enough or that this was not the path for me. This leads to a decision — accept it or abandon it. Both of these are perfectly reasonable outcomes (yes, sometimes you should quit).
It was never helpful to complain about fairness, moan about the system, or cry foul.
What To Do When Your Best Isn’t Good Enough
I now approach all failure from the context of focusing on what I can control. What can I control when my best isn’t good enough?
When my best isn’t good enough, I ask myself the following:
Was this my best?
Sometimes I don’t have to go any further because a truthful assessment of my performance reveals that I haven’t given my best.
Showing up is not the same as giving it your best. Showing up is essential, but don’t confuse “I showed up” with “I did my best.”
I owned and managed college student housing for several years. During my last couple of years of ownership, I started having trouble finding tenants.
At first, I blamed the university and the system, and the students. But after some soul searching, I realized that I was no longer giving it my best effort. I became complacent in marketing, networking, and keeping the units in tip-top shape, and it showed up in my results.
You probably can’t give it your best every time. I certainly can’t, so if I failed and this truly wasn’t my best effort, then I don’t need to go any further to know what I have to do next time.
Why wasn’t my best good enough?
Maybe I wasn’t focused on the right thing, or I need more practice, training, skill development, or different team members.
I analyze and find the why. This diagnosis shows me what I need to improve.
I worked with a direct sales company for a while, and I had very little success, even though I was giving it my best effort. I wasn’t good enough at sales skills, social media skills, people skills, nor organization. To have success in that business, I needed to improve in those areas.
A proper diagnosis is essential.
Is it worth pursuing to get better?
Honestly, sometimes quitting is the best approach. Quitting the wrong things faster is a quicker path to success. Quitting means you’re not afraid to experiment, and experimentation is how you find what is worth your time and effort.
The World tries to teach us that winners never quit and quitters never win. Eight billion inspirational Instagram posts can’t be wrong, can they?
In my direct sales experience, I looked at a day in the life of people who were having success in this field, and I realized I didn’t want to become them because I didn’t want their day. Getting better at direct sales skills wasn’t worth it because I’m not interested in what success in that field brings with it. I can’t picture myself as one of them.
In contrast, I feel the opposite about writing, and therefore, I’m pursuing writing skill development in earnest. When I look at a day in successful writers’ lives, I’m inspired, and I can picture myself there.
Perseverance and grit will be needed, but recognizing when quitting is the best approach is a superpower.
How can I get better?
Once I’ve determined what needs improving and that it’s worth it, I look at how I can improve my current best.
Do I need to train more or differently? Is it time to focus on developing a new or different skill? Is my comfort zone the problem? Do I need to push through and persevere in a particular area?
The first time I ran a ten-mile race, my goal was to finish in the top 25% of my age group. On race day, I gave my best but finished closer to the 50% mark. For my second ten-miler, I used a specific training plan to improve my speed and finished in the top 15% of my age group. I gave my best effort in both races, but I learned how to train differently to improve my best.
Analysis plus experimentation helps me figure out how to improve.
Can I change the game?
Maybe I don’t need to get better. Maybe I should change the rules or my objectives.
When I was a first-time manager of a software development team, I struggled with a team member who wasn’t contributing. I couldn’t keep him on track, keep him engaged, nor make him productive. Through some experimentation, I found a method that worked — micromanagement of his entire day. But that created a new set of problems. Namely, I was exhausted, hated my life, and the rest of the team suffered for it.
So I changed the rules and my objective. I pulled him out of the core team and gave him a small side-project he could develop himself. Although I had found a “best-effort” that allowed him to contribute (i.e., micromanagement), the price was too high, so I let go of the objective of his contribution to the team.
This experience taught me about the type of people with whom I work best, and now I build my teams accordingly. I don’t need to get better at micromanagement. I need to build teams of people who don’t require micromanagement. And when I’m given the opportunity to lead teams of the “wrong” type, I turn it down.
Stop believing the hype. Sometimes your best isn’t good enough, but it doesn’t have to be. You just need to know what to do when it isn’t.
