Do Your Best – Your Absolute Best
You never know who might be watching.
Recently, I was approached by a man after martial arts class. He told me that he appreciated my intentionality in class. That I wasn’t just going through the motions. Many of the others, he said, don’t seem to want to be there. I explained that I started going to help my kids (who had already been taking classes).
I told the gentleman that I want to be an inspiration for my family. My goal is to encourage my children to do their best, whatever that may look like. I want to set them up for success and help steer them away from failure or insecurity.
Don’t judge yourself based on the performance of others.
When I go to martial arts, I’m going there because I want to be there. I want to earn my black belt. My desire is to do my best. For me, that means earning a black belt.
I know I’m not as good as those who’ve been there longer than me. But that doesn’t mean I can’t at least do my best. To give it my all every time.
The Bible says, in Colossians 3:23-24, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”
Life is too short to live in perpetual regret.
I’m sure you’ve had that feeling, at least once, when you regretted a decision that you made. I know I have many of those. So many times, I ask myself, “why did you do that?” or “why didn’t you do that?” or “I know I could’ve done better.”
Unfortunately, and I know this truth, it’s futile thinking. There’s nothing that I can do to change my past. Nor is there anything any of us can do to change it either. Thankfully, we can learn from the decisions we’ve made in order to make better ones.
Life is too short to live with so many regrets. Actually, it’s too short to live with any regrets. That’s why, when I have those thoughts pass through my mind, I decide that I will do it better next time. To make the better decision when I’m faced with a similar situation. When we do this, we’re learning from our mistakes. Therefore, we’re improving ourselves.
You’re capable of more than you think.
Whenever I hear someone tell me, “I’m doing my best,” I have to wonder, is that true? Are they really doing their best?
While in the Army, I learned that my mind would create barriers. It would essentially stop me. If we were running, my mind would tell me, “you’re too tired. You can’t go any faster.” In time, I learned that if I push through that, I can achieve much more than I thought possible.
For centuries, it was believed to be impossible to run the mile in under four minutes. If you break it down, that’s one minute for every quarter mile. I ran sprints in high school. My fastest two-hundred-meter time was 28.7 seconds. For me, that was fast. If I doubled that, one could speculate that I could’ve ran a quarter mile in 57.4 seconds.
Unfortunately, I knew that wasn’t possible. That speed was too much to sustain once around the track. I was a short distance runner. In my experience, most sprinters are slowing down at the end. Not necessarily because they want to. It’s just that our bodies are tired.
Keep on keeping on. Don’t give up.
I can’t imagine running that fast, at an almost constant speed, four times around the track. That seems too much for me. And for a long time, it was believed to be physically impossible to run the mile in under four minutes.
Over and over again people tried, but they just couldn’t break that threshold. As much as they wanted to, it was unattainable. But not for Roger Bannister.
Roger was a twenty-five-year-old medical student at the time. He was also a runner at Oxford University. The year was 1954. He had been working on some mechanics of running that he had researched.
May 6, 1954, the day of the race, had arrived. The weather didn’t seem to want to cooperate either. It was windy and raining. There was a crosswind blowing as the race was about to begin.
A friend of his would help as a pacesetter. For the first half, he would lead with Roger following close behind. They had planned it all out beforehand.
At 350 yards from the finish line, the unofficial timekeeper had him tied with the current world record of 3 minutes and 43 seconds. Digging in deep, Roger pulled out all stops. He wasn’t going to let his mind, or anyone else, get in his way.
That day, Roger became the first person, in recorded history, to run the mile in less than four minutes (3 minutes 59.4 seconds).
Tell your mind, to tell your body, Yes You Can!
We all can’t be world record holders like Roger Bannister. But we can push ourselves beyond the limitations of our minds. And I don’t mean in just running. I mean in every area of life.
Whatever it is you think is your best, I’m confident that if you push yourself a little harder, you could do even better. If you want to do better, then tell yourself that you can do better. Then take strides to improve and prove yourself right.
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