Day 60: Giving it your best.

Throughout my life my folks have always imparted the same advice no matter the task that lie ahead of me, "give it your best."

It's great advice. And right now, I am reevaluating exactly what that means.

Here's something I realize now about myself: I like giving things my best attempt. BUT, I tend to let me off the hook too easily. Now, I know there are certain wonderful people in my life that would say I'm too tough on myself. And they would be right regarding certain circumstances. But if I'm being honest with them, with me, and with you - I half-ass a lot of things. Sure, I start charging hard fresh out of the gates, but who doesn't? Go to the gym the first two weeks of January, it's evident: we all love the idea of a changing us, of fresh starts. But here's my question: how do we sustain change? How do we really give it our best all the time? Is exercising our best like exercising the body? Is our best a muscle we build? Perhaps.

It's what separates the pro's from the hobbyists. It's a challenge to give it your all - all the time, it really is. Yet, settling for less is really devaluing our worth, no?

I'm giving something my best right now. I'm teaching a class this Saturday. I could have taken the easy way out, and given a general piece of material for the whole class. But I didn't. I sat down, spoke (well, emailed) each student to get a better idea of them and what I could do to suit there specific requirements. Doing this meant I had about an hour to clean my apartment and workout before I sat down to type this.

So worth it. They feel better about their class, and you know what? Me too.

I'm going to keep imposing this one. It doesn't matter if I like the task at hand or not. It's not up to me to deem something worthy of my best effort. It's up to me to decide the type of person I choose to be. So even if it's not "the dream job," phoning it in never pays. It's still my potential.

It's a risk, a challenge and a step towards happiness.

Thanks for coming back. Thanks for reading. Thanks for being part of this adventure. Means a lot.